Center for Activity Theory and Developmental Work Research

Kerosuo, H. (2007). Following my traces: Exploring the emotional engagement with the research subject through the researcher’s artwork. Culture and Organization, 1,55-72.

The article explores the researcher’s emotional engagement in fieldwork through the researcher’s artwork. Revisiting the emotional engagement is important in order to make sense of the research subject of the study in complex research sites. The care of twenty-six patients was followed during a change project that involved relationships between various clinics and providers. The organizational complexity became obvious when each patient case created its own field of study in the health care organization. In the study, it is suggested that we can gain access to emotional engagement through art and aesthetics in organizational ethnographies. Emotional engagement with the research subject is an important part of constituting the research subject in complex organizations. In future projects, it will be important to discuss aesthetic experiences raised by the fieldwork with the participants. Discussing such experiences is part of the co-constitution of the sense and meaning of the activity that is under change.