ABSTRACT

An engagement with intimate and autobiographical forms of writing can offer a venue where 'writers, born again in the act of writing, may experiment with reconstructing the various discourses in which their subjectivity has been formed'. This chapter offers an exploratory analysis of the spatial politics of entrepreneurial policies made by various government agencies. Through the works of McDowell and others, budding feminist geographers are exposed to words like 'self-reflexivity' and 'positionality' across graduate seminars. Intimate writing provides an avenue by which to access and present how anxiety and vulnerability collide with the ways by which researchers locate themselves in the research process. They can help elucidate, as McKay notes, 'how self-understanding changes' as a result of research experiences. Intimate writing as text, data and method can also offer an outlet to engage in meaningful methodological discussions about the common 'worry' and 'awfulness' many of researchers encounter when conducting research in a specific context.