ABSTRACT
In spite of the increased attention in geography towards intimacy and intimate field research, readers have observed reluctance among scholars, ourselves included, to delve fully into explaining the intimate connections that we share with our research participants. As intimate insiders, our lives constantly straddle two distinct worlds. The intimate relationships with research participants created a tension in how we present ourselves to our academic and research communities. This chapter introduces the research projects and the intimate relationships with the research participants. It then focuses on a series of short reflections that detail the transition from fieldwork back to the academy, and the moments of tension readers felt in relation to the disparate perspectives between the research and academic communities. Vanessa begins with a reflection that explains how she mixed her personal and professional life in the field to legitimate her accounts of the drug economy in Grays Ferry.
