ABSTRACT
In this chapter we present a collaborative autoethnographic inquiry using a case study whereby we document our own ‘telephone lives’ over a period of seven weeks to examine how the telephone transgresses physical space to create space for the interaction of emotional and social relationships. This case study provides an example of the purposes and outcomes of using autoethnography in social work. We draw on a mix of visual and textual methods specifically diary notes, memory work and photography. We suggest that our methodological approach and methods bring forth the complex and lived experiences of gender and in this case gender and telephony that are not likely to emerge via quantitative studies or traditional qualitative methods based on interviews. The telephone as a material cultural artefact is a medium through which social relations and emotions are transmitted, shaped, altered and given meaning in contexts which span both place and space. To date, social work research has rarely explored the interstices between material artefacts and culture and how these shape social relations. This chapter examines the interrelationships between the material and the social using textual and visual methods to enable analyses of gender and embodiment in relation to women’s paid and unpaid working lives across space and time.
