DaniaHabib HABD11528807-Proposal.docx

Université de Montréal

Département de communication

Projet de mémoireThe imagined presence of the other : women’s practice of mobile intimacy in long distance

relationships

Dania HabibHABD11528807

Directrice:Tamara Vukov

Novembre 2013

The imagined presence of the other: women’s practice of mobile intimacy in long distance relationships (Working title)

“After a while, I get so much into my routine, and he is not part of it enough. Skype

helps to diminish that a little. I see my partner’s expression or his smile, and it triggers

something, it comes and gets me, whereas this is more difficult over the phone […]

because it puts a face and makes all the difference, […] in my head, it reduces the

distance” (Interview with Alexandra, 2012, my translation, pp. 6, 10).

In this quote from an interview I conducted for my methodology class last year,

Alexandra mentions several important aspects involved in her long distance relationship

which brings forth questions around emotions, feelings, technologies, space and time,

relationships and communication technologies. The focus of this research will be on

womens’ perspectives and practices of mobile technologies with a partner living in another

country. More specifically, I am interested in the construction of intimacy and of the

other’s presence in these types of relationships. Through which mobile technologies and

which modes of expressions is this made possible? And what are the implications

(economic, social, cultural, political…) surrounding these mobile intimacies?

My proposal is divided into four main sections. In the first, I give a brief history of

different modes of communication, as well as an overview of the increase in corporeal

travel in the last few decades. These changes in technologies and the increase of mobilities

have had consequences on social relations, which I attend to in the second section. This is

where I present the questions and key concepts that will guide my inquiry. The third section

of my proposal will introduce my theoretical framework, which is informed by new

mobilities research and will draw on recent literature on mobile intimacy and presence,

namely connected and imaged presence. In the fourth and final section, I will discuss the

methodological approaches I propose to use for this research. Informed by mobile methods,

these include semi-structured qualitative interviews, multi-media diaries and auto-

ethnography. I will also attend to some of the ethical issues that will be important to

consider during the research process.

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1. Context

1.1. Mobile Technologies in a Historical Context

Historically, the delivery of messages tended to be a long process: letters had to

travel with people, by horse or by other available means of transportation. As the postal

service emerged in England, Whyman (2009) explains that “the Glorious Revolution of

1688 led to freer communication and a surge in postal income” (p.3), which brought an

overall excitement for communicating with distant others. Subsequently, in 1838, Morse’s

telegraph led to the idea of communicating over electric wire. In 1876, Alexander Graham

Bell invented the electric-speaking telephone (Lasén, 2005, p.29), but it was only later that

it became practical for one-on-one dialogue (p.31-32). This brought important changes in

the expansion of social life at work and at home. In their historical overview, Lacohée,

Wakeford, Pearson (2003) explain that the next advance came with the development from

the landline telephone to the mobile telephone: “the first land mobile services were

introduced in the United Kingdom in the early 1940s” (p.204). Nevertheless, it was only at

the beginning of the 1990s that the amount of service providers and digital networks

increased sufficiently, allowing the mobile phone’s popularity to rise. This linking of

communication to mobility became central to contemporary social networks (Lacohée,

Wakeford, Pearson, 2003, p.205) as it contributed to the development of and participation

in “a set of relationships in a complex social world” (Lacohée, Wakeford, Pearson, 2003,

p.205).

As little as 15 years ago, people were primarily calling landline telephones and

sending and receiving everything by mail: letters, postcards, bills, invitations for birthdays

or important events, etc. Today, within my generation and from personal observations on

my own and others’ everyday uses, it is common practice to send text messages instead of

making a phone call, to email a birthday card, to access online bills through various

accounts or to purchase items from around the world on the World Wide Web. Moreover, it

is also common practice to actualize our lives through social networking sites like Twitter,

Facebook and Instagram, sharing statuses, thoughts and photos instantly with a wide

international public, no matter where we are. All these new ways of circulating messages

and images travel through a common portal: the screens of our various technologies, which

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are becoming more mobile than ever. Studying and researching mobile technologies and

the social changes surrounding them is particularly relevant given that the number of

cellphone subscriptions is now as high as the number of people worldwide (“UN: Six

billion mobile phone subscriptions in the world” , 2012). Furthermore, the mobile

telephone blends old traditional forms of writing, like letters, telegraphs, the sharing of

photos, with the voice and audio forms of communication (Hjorth, Lim, 2012, p. 478). This

kind of historical perspective is significant when analyzing mobile technologies because it

challenges today’s presentism, and contributes to the understanding and exploration of

current uses and practices.

1.2. People On the Move

In addition to the advancement of communication technologies, the past few

decades have seen an important increase in people traveling. In 1950, it was estimated that

there were 25 million legal, international passenger arrivals. This number went up to 700

million in 2005. At the time, predictions were that by 2010, there would be 1 billion legal,

international passenger arrivals (Sheller, Urry, 2006, p.207) but in 2011, the numbers edged

towards 5.4 billion passengers (Airports Council International, 2012), with a 4% increase

during the following year (Airports Council International, 2013). More and more people are

on the move, whether it is for work, studies or simply for pleasure. The movement of

people across borders has numerous other implications (economic, social, cultural,

political) that shape and contribute to a rise and intensification in all types of remote social

relationships.

A popular understanding of a relationship is the “state of being related or

interrelated” (Merriam-Webster, 2013), in reference to friends, family or lovers. For the

purpose of this proposal, I will focus on intimate relationships; those that connect people

and involve physical and emotional intimacy. However, I am still exploring approaches to

and definitions of intimate relationships. I propose to further investigate the theoretical

framings in my literature review in order to determine my ultimate approach.

With the increase in corporeal travel, the rise of remote, intimate relationships is a

significant phenomenon. In 2005, it was estimated that 7 million couples in the United

States were in a long distance relationship (Long Distance Statistics, 2008). In 2012, these

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numbers have doubled: 14 million couples claimed to be in a long distance relationship,

including 3.75 million married couples (Long Distance Relationships Statistics, 2012). In

addition, there are many relationship types that fall outside the definitions of “conventional

lovers relationships” (Holmes, 2004, p.181): labels such as the open relationship, the

“Living Apart Together” relationship (p.181), the distant couple (p. 180), the dual-career

relationship, and nowadays, even the online relationship. Simmel (1971/1908) has noted,

“…physical and emotional distance visits all relationships in some degree” (quoted in:

Holmes, 2004, p.186). Researching remote intimate relationships is therefore, particularly

pertinent as people are increasingly on the move, and every person has, at some point or

another, been distanced from a significant other, for variable amounts of time.

2: Conceptualization/Formulation of research question

For the purpose of this proposal, I will refer to long distance relationships as those

trans-national intimate relationships and those remote relations in which weekly or even

monthly meetings are not possible. This type of relationship prompts individuals to

reconstruct emotional and physical intimacies in their everyday practices through the use of

mobile technologies. Holmes (2004) explains that “very little has been done on

relationships involving greater distances between partners” (p.187). As such, there is a need

for more research on individuals’ mobile practices, as well as the other types of

implications involved in these types of relationships.

As Elliott and Urry (2010) argue, “people can be near, in touch and together, even

when great distances tear them apart physically” (p.100). I am interested in exploring how

people find ways to “be together” when the distance that separates them does not allow for

physical presence for extended periods of time. How can two people, living in different

parts of the world, still “be together” and maintain a relationship? How do new

technologies and communication media come to challenge normative conceptions of

intimacy (Berlant, 2000, p.3)? Furthermore, what is the pertinence of gender in these types

of relationships? Brummer (2002), Hoschild (2001, 2003), Fortunati (2009) and other

feminist scholars have highlighted the importance of womens’ perspectives in regards to

technology because of the “arising and existing gender inequalities that stretch across many

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notions of mobility and immobility” (Fortunati, 2009, p.23). As a woman researcher, my

interest is in investigating and understanding other womens’ perspectives and practices of

mobile technologies with partners living in another country, in order to conceptualize and

investigate the construction of intimacy and presence of the other.

RESEARCH QUESTION

My primary research question that will be used to guide my inquiry is as follows:

How do women in long distance relationships use various modes of expression (visual,

textual, aural, and haptic) through different mobile technologies in order to construct an

intimate space, and the imagined presence of the other in their every day practices of

mobile intimacies at a distance? What are the social, cultural, political and other

implications of these mobile intimacies and practices for these women and distant

relations?

3: Theoretical Framework

My theoretical approach will be informed by new mobilities research, which

examines the movement of people, ideas, information or objects (Büscher, Urry, Witchger,

2010). This will shape my consideration of mobile technologies not only as the

technologies themselves, but also through “the various ways in which mobilities play out

through mobile media practices” (Hjorth, Lim, 2012, p.477). Secondly, recent literature

formerly known as mobile intimacy by scholars such as Berlant, (2000); Hjorth and Lim,

(2012); Elliott and Urry, (2010), is of interest as it supports the existence of and defines

new forms of “intimacy as portable, unattached to a concrete space” (Berlant, 2000, p.4).

Finally, drawing on different literatures on presence, in particular concepts such as

connected and imagined presence (Licoppe 2004; Chayko 2002; Elliott and Urry, 2010),

will allow me to further investigate the sociocultural experiences of the feeling of presence

of a physically absent other.

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3.1. The New Mobilities Research

The new mobilities paradigm “generates an alternative theoretical and

methodological landscape” (Büscher, Urry, Witchger, 2010, p.4), which investigates the

movement of people, ideas, information and objects. Mobilities involve various forms of

travel that “produce social life organized across distance and which form its contours”

(Büscher, Urry, Witchger, 2010, p.5). Additionally, because these “mobilities are relational

rather than individualized” (Elliott, Urry, 2010, p. 101) they are crucial when researching

long distance relationships.

Five types of mobilities, or forms of travel, have been identified by scholars

(Büscher, Urry, Witchger, 2010; Elliott Urry, 2010) as interrelated processes of movement.

Firstly, as formerly mentioned, corporeal travel involves the movement of people for work,

pleasure, family, migration and escape. Secondly, physical movement of objects includes

the sending and receiving of presents and souvenirs, and the (re)configuration of people,

objects and spaces as part of dwelling and place-making. Thirdly, imaginative travel is

“effected through talk but also the images of places and peoples appearing on and moving

across print and visual media” (Büscher, Urry, Witchger, 2010, p.5). Fourthly, virtual travel

allows real time presence and action, transcending geographical and social distances.

Finally, communicative travel is achieved through the contact between two individuals via

embodied conduct, messages, texts, postcards, letters, telegraph, fax and mobile (Büscher,

Urry, Witchger, 2010, p.5).

In the case of long distance intimate relationships, these various types of mobilities

can each be part of daily life, created and adapted between individuals involved in these

relationships. As Büscher, Urry, Witchger (2010), note: “It is not just about how people

make knowledge of the world, but how they physically and socially make the world

through the ways they move and mobilize people, objects, information and ideas” (p. 112).

In this way, the new mobilities paradigm will allow me to analyze mobile

technologies and practices more broadly, and their contribution to the maintenance of long

distance relationships. As Hjorth (2011) has explained: “the role of mobile technologies, as

a lens for thinking about contemporary mobility, has provided much fuel for debates

regarding the ways in which work and love, here and there, virtual and actual, are

transforming” (p. 37). Although some, like Pertierra (2005) and Proitz (2005), have argued

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that “mobile phones are the most popular and accessible [form of mobile technology],

contributing firmly to a redefinition of intimacy” (quoted in Lasén, Casado, 2012, p. 552), I

will not be limiting my research to the mobile phone. I believe that various mobile

technologies may contribute to the creation of intimacy and a presence between two

individuals at a distance, involving and interrelating different types of movements and

travels. This resembles the way in which Hjorth and Lim (2012) refer to the “mobile” not

only as the technologies themselves, but the ways in which mobilities play out through

mobile media practices (p.477). Looking at mobile technologies in this open-ended way,

involving various types of mobilities and travels, will not limit the research to one

technology previously determined by the researcher. This will allow my participants to

explain the ways in which they communicate on a daily or regular basis with their distant

partner. Such an approach to mobile technologies allows my research to explore intimacy

and presence in these types of remote, intimate relationships.

In sum, I do not want to “look at technology as the things themselves, […] but the

process whereby all those entities interact and give form and content to our world” (Vanini,

2009, p.4), and in particular to the world of the people in long distance relationships. How

do various types of mobilities, as well as mobile technologies, participate in the

maintenance of a distanced relationship? What interests me about these mobilities is their

interrelatedness and how women mobilize them in order to create and maintain intimacies

and the other’s presence at a distance. They also raise important questions about gender,

power, control and surveillance that will also inform my research (Fortunati, 2009).

3.2. Intimacy

In its popular understanding, intimacy is understood as: “a close or warm friendship

or understanding; [a] personal relationship” (Collins, 2013). Berlant (2000) defines it as

follows:

“…at its roots, intimacy has the quality of eloquence and brevity. But

intimacy also involves an aspiration for a narrative about something shared,

a story about both oneself and others […] Usually, this story is set within

zones of familiarity and comfort: friendship, the couple, and the family

form, animated by expressive and emancipating kinds of love […] This

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view of “a life” that unfolds intact within the intimate sphere represses

another fact about it: the unavoidable troubles, the distractions and

disruptions […]” (p.1)

Although in some communities there are long lasting traditions of intimacy, many

conventional forms of intimacy are being actively modified and reconstructed. “To rethink

intimacy is to appraise how we have been and how we live and how we might imagine lives

that make more sense than the ones so many are living” (Berlant, 2000, p.6). Consequently,

individuals have distinctive ways of trying to make sense of their circumstances, and

relationally attempt to create new intimate spaces where interactions and exchanges are

made possible across large distances. Berlant (2000) argues, “that viturally no one knows

how to do intimacy” (p.2), to which I would add, that no one really knows how to do

intimacy virtually.

The notion of mobile intimacy, of being intimate through distances and time in an

age of mobile technologies, allows us to reflect on this new mode of intimacy on the move

(Berlant, 2000, p.4). Elliott and Urry (2010) have framed these mobile intimacies, in a way

that is particularly relevant to long distance relationships: “Intimacies in conditions of

intensive mobilities become flexible, transformable and negotiable... fluid in both

emotional and interpersonal terms. Mobile intimacy involves relationships across distance

and through space and is spreading to many social relations” (Elliott, Urry, 2010, p.90). In

addition, this notion of mobile intimacy is one that “encompasses many issues around

emotions, co-presence, diaspora, personal technologies and emerging forms of affective,

social and emotional labor” (Hjorth, Lim, 2012, p.478). Hjorth and Lim (2012) define

mobile intimacy as:

“… [the] multiple cartographies of space in which the geographic and

physical space is overlaid with an electronic position and relational

presence, which is emotional and social. This overlaying of the material-

geographic and electronic-social is what can be called mobile intimacy”

(p.478).

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I am interested in how feminist media scholars have framed the notion of mobile

intimacy, as “…unquestionabl[y], […] a feminist issue” (Hjorth, Lim, p. 477). For

example, in regards to women’s use of the landline telephone, Ann Moyal has

demonstrated how it was used “to form and maintain social bonds, and […] regular

discussions about ordinary day-to-day events” (quoted in Crawford, 2009, p.255).

Additionally, historically, there was a tendency for men to criticize women for these uses,

which were perceived as pointless and costly (Crawford, 2009, p.255). Yet, scholars have

argued that the phone “play[ed] a particular role in creating affective connections”

(Sawchuk, Crow, 2012, p. 496).

Furthermore, as Ellen van Oost argues, “the process of shaping gender and

technology are closely intertwined. One can even speak of a co-construction of gender and

technology”” (quoted in Fortunati, 2009, p.26). Brunner (2002) has termed this the

“feminization of technology/telephony” (quoted in Hjorth, 2011, p.43). Hochschild (2001,

2003) has also emphasized that “[…] in the intimate and mobility turn it is women who

have undoubtedly been most implicated (quoted in: Hjorth and Lim 2012, p. 477). Finally,

Fortunati (2009) has argued for research to be “specifically designed to study the role,

meaning, representations, models, and practices of use of the mobile phone beginning from

women’s life conditions” (p.23). This research will aim to understand the subjective

perceptions of women in long distance relationships, and their uses of mobile technologies,

in maintaining practices of mobile intimacies and presence with a distant partner. The

concept of mobile intimacy as something unattached to a concrete space and constructed

relationally brings forth several questions: How do intimacy and distance influence one

another? How do mobile technologies serve to enhance or diminish women’s experience of

mobile intimacy and presence at a distance? What are the cultural and social implications of

these types of relationships and practices with respect to questions of power, control and

emotional labor?

The concept of mobile intimacy becomes key when researching long distance

relationships because physical intimacy is only possible in limited periods of time. I want to

further investigate the ways in which these mobile intimacies occur through women’s daily

uses and practices with respect to mobile technologies.

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3.3. Presence

Interrelated with intimacy, questions of presence and propinquity are central in an

age of mobile intimacy. We generally think of presence as the physically co-present other.

Yet, how does one go without the other? How can there be intimacy, when the other is not

physically present? The presumption of a “metaphysics of presence” proposed in several of

the social sciences suggests that the immediate presence of others is the “real” basis of

social existence. This is called into question in an age where mobile technologies are

predominant: “[…] many connections with people and social groupings are not

propinquitous, and this of course more now than a century or so ago” (Büscher, Urry,

Witchger, 2010, p.5). Along with the developments of various forms of communication, the

notions of presence, as well as telepresence, are increasingly subject to investigation. For

example, Milne (2010) has researched presence in letters and postcards, and in newer

technologies like the telephone. Today, some scholars would argue that, “the concept of

presence is a crucial one in an era of smartphones” (Hjorth, Wilken, Gu, 2012, p.43). In this

sense, presence can be understood as “the degree to which geographically dispersed agents

experience a sense of physical and/or psychological proximity through the use of particular

communication technologies” (Hjorth, Wilken, Gu, 2012, p.54).

A concept I will be using as guidance for the notion of presence in this research is

that developed by Licoppe (2004), what he calls “connected presence”. Connected

presence is that “in which the (physically) absent party renders himself or herself present by

multiplying mediated communication gestures up to the point where co-present interactions

and mediated communication seem woven in a seamless web” (Licoppe, 2004, p.135).

Licoppe’s research seeks to understand how “communication technologies are exploited to

provide a continuous pattern of mediated interactions that combine into `connected

relationships', in which the boundaries between absence and presence eventually get

blurred” (Licoppe, 2004, p. 135).

Another concept of presence that will be of interest is that of “imagined presence”.

Chayko (2002) explains that this presence is “achieved through objects, people, information

and images traveling, carrying connections across, and into, multiple other social spaces

from time to time” (Büscher, Urry, Witchger, 2010, p.5 quoted in: Chayko 2002). Elliott

and Urry (2010) similarly argue that this imagined presence might occur with distant

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others: “…Many forms of imagined presence shift between present and distant others, and

yet when there is absence, there may be imagined presence” (Elliott, Urry, 2010, p. 15). In

these connected relationships at a distance, how do people construct this presence? How is

this presence subjectively achieved within everyday intimate practices involving mobile

technologies?

In these literatures, I want to investigate how individuals mobilize certain practices

through which a subjective construction of the other’s presence is possible, namely an

imagined or connected presence. How is the absent other rendered present through the

movement of people, objects and information? Do the boundaries of presence/absence

eventually get blurred, and if so, how?

4: Methodology

My initial interest in this research topic grew out of my own experiences. My

general curiosity about movements and travels, new technologies and remote relationships

began a few years ago, when I began to leave home for extended periods of time while

working, studying and/or living abroad. Over the years, many of my interpersonal

relationships have been beyond borders: that with my brother who studied in British

Colombia for 3 years, the maintenance of friendships around the world acquired through

my travels, that with my best friend who has recently moved to New York. Currently, I am

in a relationship with my partner who lives in Lima, Peru. All modes of communication,

from postcards to email, phone calls or Skype, are significant on a daily basis for the

maintenance of these various, distant relationships.

On the other hand, I also face the daily challenge of everyday life while the people I

am attached to are not physically by my side. Moreover, this phenomenon seems to be

increasing in my entourage: more and more people around me are moving elsewhere,

leaving family or loved ones in other countries. Many people, myself included, are in

intimate relationships with a partner who is, in some cases, at the other end of the world.

Based on my own experiences, I am interested in comprehending how other women deal

with emotions, intimacies and presence with a distanced partner, through their daily mobile

practices. Moreover, how are mobile intimacies achieved using visual, textual, aural and

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haptic modes of expression and through which old and/or new mobile technologies? What

are some of the implications, social, economic, political, cultural, etc., that affects these

types of relationships? How are women from different parts of the world affected by these

implications?

Informed by recent works in mobile methods (Büscher, Urry, Witchger, 2010), I

will be using a mixed methods approach. The use of semi-structured qualitative interviews,

multimedia diaries, and autoethnography will serve as strategies to explore women’s

perspectives and practices of mobile intimacies and the implications surrounding these

mobile technologies.

4.1. Qualitative Interviews

In order to evoke information and generate data around the subjective perceptions of

participants, I will conduct qualitative interview with women in long distance relationships.

Qualitative interviewing will allow for in-depth discussions around women’s stories, and

details about the emotions, feelings and intimacies involved in their relationships.

During the first part of my fieldwork, I will be conducting between 8-10 qualitative,

semi-structured interviews. My sample will be of women over 18 years of age, mainly

living in Montreal, and possibly a few (2 to 4) women living in Peru, who have a partner in

another country. The socio-cultural contexts of these women will not be narrowed down to

a specific group, category or nationality. Rather, I believe that it is enriching to have

women from different backgrounds, with different stories, in different situations and of

various ages in my sample.

The subjects of intimacies, feelings and emotions can be delicate, and not

necessarily everyone will be open to discussing their private life with a stranger. As a

woman in a long distance relationship, my personal experience can be a resource in

creating a rapport and to encourage dialogue. This rapport is established “not as scientists

but as human beings” (Oakley, 1981, p.55) in order to get a rich sense of their practices of

mobile relationality.

After the first interview, I will ask participants if they would be interested in

partaking in the second phase of my research, which will include keeping a diary and

participating in a follow-up interview. This second interview will create a productive space

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of exchange, in which rapport might be further developed. Ellis, Adams & Bochner (2011),

consider these to be “interactive interviews”, one-on-one interviews with the participants on

more than one occasion. These types of interviews “… provide an in-depth and intimate

understanding of people’s experiences with emotionally charged and sensitive topics”

(Ellis, Adams, Bochner, 2011, p. 279, quoted in Ellis, 1997, p.121). In addition, this format

may allow for significant “gain in terms of collecting more information in greater depth”

(Oakley, 1981, p.44).

4.2. Multi-Media Diaries

Before meeting with participants for the second interview, I will ask them to keep a

bi-weekly diary, which may be written or typed, for a minimum period of four weeks after

the first interview. Writing can also help people make sense of themselves, and it can also

provide a fruitful reflexive process on their experiences (Ellis, Adams, Bochner, 2011, p.

280 quoted in: Kiesinger, 2002; Poulos, 2008).

Diaries can be a rich complementary method to research that involves intimacy, as

Harvey (2011) explains: “diaries have proved [to be] a useful tool for qualitative

researchers in exploring sensitive subjects or the ‘private’ sphere” (p.666). It will also allow

participants to capture and reflect on feelings, emotions, intimacies and thoughts about

mobile technologies and their relationship that they might normally ignore. These diary

entries will be timed-based: “Research with time-based design is often concerned with

ongoing experiences that can be assessed within the course of a typical period” (Bolger,

Davis, Rafaeli, 2003, p. 588-9). The time interval for diary entries will be flexible; I will

ask participants for at least two weekly entries. Rather than fixing times and days for diary

entries, I would like participants to write when something relevant happens in their

relationship.

Adey (2010) argues, “diaries, informal photos and notes can provide effective ways

of representing everyday mobilities” (p.156). Thus, individuals will also be invited, at their

discretion, to incorporate other types of media into their diaries or to bring them during the

second interview. These media can include screenshots, photos, audio, letters and

postcards, etc., and will be discussed during the interview. I will ask participants to send me

their diaries two weeks before we meet, allowing me enough time to read their writings and

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prepare for our second interview. This follow up interview will be critical in going into

further details about intimacies and emotions in women’s uses and practices through mobile

technologies.

4.3. Autoethnography and Personal Diary

In her article, “Intimate Reflections: Private Diaries in Qualitative Research”,

Harvey (2011) examines “the ways in which reflecting in a diary can provide a way for

participants and researchers to explore ambivalence in their intimate daily lives” (p. 665). I

have already started keeping my own diary, which includes day-to-day uses of technologies

and my own analyses of these uses, personal events with my partner as well as feelings,

emotions and intimacies at a distance. This reflexive process is necessary for me as a

researcher, not only in regards to my own long distance relationship, but also in regards to

my fieldwork and my thoughts throughout the process: “reflecting critically on our own

emotions, behavior and role in the field enables us to understand the parallels between our

experience as researchers and that of those we study” (Punch, 2012, p.89, quoted in Lee-

Treweek, 2000:128). Throughout the research process, this diary will help me attend to the

balance “between embracing [my] emotions and not over-indulging in them” (Punch, 2012,

p.91). My belief in involving myself in the research process is inspired by autoethnography

as “[…] one of the approaches that acknowledges and accommodates subjectivity,

emotionality, and the researcher’s influence on research, rather than hiding from these

matters or assuming they don’t exist” (Ellis, Adams, Bochner, 2011, p.274). Furthermore,

“autoethnographers believe research can be rigorous, theoretical, analytical and emotional,

and inclusive of personal and social phenomena” (Ellis, Adams, Bochner, 2011, p.283). My

personal thoughts and experiences will not be the center of the research, as I will be

focusing primarily on the women I will be interviewing and on their diaries. As my life

situation is resonant with the participants’, as a woman with a partner living on another

continent, this can be an important and enriching resource for my research, helping to form

questions, reflections and understandings.

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4.4. Ethical Issues

Because I am involved in this research as a woman with a distant partner, I am also

involving a close, intimate other in my writings (Ellis, Adams, Bochner, 2011, p.281). It is

difficult to not involve my partner in my research, as personal experiences, thoughts and

feelings understandably relate to our daily interactions, our intimacies and our mobilities.

As Richardson (2001) has emphasized, one of the most important issues when writing is the

involvement of others (p.37). I will attend to these challenges and maintain my partner’s

anonymity by blending myself in the data, by changing names, or by omitting

characteristics that may be recognizable to his identity.

Ellis, Adams & Bochner (2011) explain that sometimes, the involvement of a close

other can be a problem because one has “to be able to continue to live in the world of

relationships in which their research is embedded after the research is complete” (p.282).

Since research is an ongoing process, I will be attentive to the ways that the relationship

with my partner may be affected during, and after its completion.

In regards to the ethics with the participants that will partake in my research, I will

obtain their informed consent before audiotaping interviews. Participants will be given the

option to skip or refuse to answer questions and can withdraw at any time. All names will

be changed in order to maintain their confidentiality. The diaries will be kept confidential

and will be destroyed within the time period stated in the consent forms.

These methods will allow me to deepen my understanding and analysis of women’s

practices and uses of mobile technologies and how these practices contribute to the

maintenance of mobile intimacy and presence at a distance. Giving my participants the time

to reflect and write about their experiences will be an enriching way to collect experiences

and stories that happen in the moment, from which I hope to go into more depth during the

second interview.

5. Conclusion

I am interested in women’s perspectives on their everyday practices of mobile intimacies

with respect to the construction of an imagined presence of a distant other. There is a need

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for more research on intimate, remote relationships and how women from different socio-

cultural backgrounds are affected by mobilities (or immobilities), and other factors (social,

cultural, political, economic) surroundings these relationships. I hope that my emerging

data and analysis will contribute to the growing body of research in this field, as well as to

raise and explore a wider set of questions. In particular, one set of questions I am interested

to explore is the place of language in long distance intimacies and how it may be a source

of both enrichment and occasion for navigating (mis) understandings, confusions and/or

difficulties in communicating and the expression of emotions through mobile technologies

between people from different cultures separated by distance and time.

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