ABSTRACT
This chapter shows the ways in which researchers' and participants' body-selves are implicated in data analysis procedures. It discusses data analysis as a material practice, and as analysis located in the head, heart, and gut. Qualitative researchers in the early stages of data analysis achieve 'intimate familiarity' with their textual materials by rereading them many times, making notes on emergent trends before proceeding to later stages of analysis. While some aspects of embodiment may seem readily apparent in researchers' data, they may find it helpful to read data with an eye toward detecting more subtle cues of bodies intra-acting with other bodies, actants, places, and discourses. Using computer programs that assist with qualitative data analysis, 'we can create, see and manipulate various objects. These objects can be of different sizes and shapes; they can be hidden, moved, split, colourised, grouped, and regrouped, forgotten and rediscovered on unexpected occasions'.
