This chapter provides a methodological addition to ethnographic approaches to study love. It tackles the question how we can investigate performances of love. Love itself is a concept that is fluid and develops meaning not only through words but also bodies. To explore love as a researcher therefore means to consider the diverse materiality of love. The narrations of love are just as important as bodily reactions. This research on migration experiences of German-Russian couples is based on a combination of ethnographical and systemic psychotherapeutic methods. Intensive 2-year-long research provided the basis to use a sculpture work. This method is called “timeline” and ropes are used to symbolize the lives of interview partners. The couples formed with ropes their lives on the floor. Thereby they could literally walk the interviewers through their migrations experiences as marriage migrants. The qualitative, actor-focusing method was conducted with five German-Russian couples in Germany. This method gives the possibility to include the different perspectives and experiences of love even within one relationship. Especially in order to understand binational or transcultural relationships, it is important to avoid reductions. Additionally, this method is a potent research practice to collect narrative, emotional, and nonverbal aspects of love at the same time. How intimacy is created as well as what love means for binational couples concerning life choices is presented. This chapter sets out a research design to study the complex performance of love and proposes further inclusion of systemic methods in qualitative research designs.

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How to Research Performances of Love with Timelines

  • Sharon Rose Brehm

摘要

This chapter provides a methodological addition to ethnographic approaches to study love. It tackles the question how we can investigate performances of love. Love itself is a concept that is fluid and develops meaning not only through words but also bodies. To explore love as a researcher therefore means to consider the diverse materiality of love. The narrations of love are just as important as bodily reactions. This research on migration experiences of German-Russian couples is based on a combination of ethnographical and systemic psychotherapeutic methods. Intensive 2-year-long research provided the basis to use a sculpture work. This method is called “timeline” and ropes are used to symbolize the lives of interview partners. The couples formed with ropes their lives on the floor. Thereby they could literally walk the interviewers through their migrations experiences as marriage migrants. The qualitative, actor-focusing method was conducted with five German-Russian couples in Germany. This method gives the possibility to include the different perspectives and experiences of love even within one relationship. Especially in order to understand binational or transcultural relationships, it is important to avoid reductions. Additionally, this method is a potent research practice to collect narrative, emotional, and nonverbal aspects of love at the same time. How intimacy is created as well as what love means for binational couples concerning life choices is presented. This chapter sets out a research design to study the complex performance of love and proposes further inclusion of systemic methods in qualitative research designs.