ABSTRACT
Researchers working in the home have long since recognized that this is a rather special research site. Research undertaken in other people's homes tends to be short term for various reasons: it is difficult to spend extended periods of time in homes – unless living there as a house guest, which constitutes a rather different research relationship that is quite typical of long-term anthropological research. Conventional interviewing methods have long since been the mainstay of qualitative research in the social sciences and humanities. The Low Effort Energy Demand Reduction team was particularly keen to establish this trust before the video tours where participants would be asked to introduce more private areas of their homes such as bedrooms and bathrooms to the visiting researchers. A re-enactment is conceptualized, in the context of research methodology, as a collaborative and reflexive activity developed between researcher and participant.
