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TASA Thursday: Insider Research: Navigating the Personal and the Professional

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About this event

Join us at 12:30pm (AEST) on 22nd May 2025 for this month's TASA Thursday Session: 'Insider Research: Navigating the Personal and the Professional.

This session critically examines the methodological, ethical, and epistemological dimensions of insider research within sociology. Insider research - where scholars investigate communities, identities, or experiences to which they are personally connected - raises complex questions about reflexivity, power, and the boundaries between the personal and the professional.

Graduate researchers Tracey Squire and Jayne Garrod will draw on their respective research projects to reflect on the challenges and possibilities of occupying insider positions. Tracey’s work explores breastfeeding support through feminist and new materialist frameworks, informed by her own maternal and volunteer experiences. Jayne’s research on disability, agency, and marginalisation is grounded in her lived experience as a neurodivergent and physically disabled person.

The discussion will engage with key issues such as shifting positionalities, the ethics of representation, community accountability, and the methodological implications of conducting research from within.

Event Details:

Date: Thursday 22nd May 2025
Time: 12:30pm - 13:30pm (AEST)
Format: Zoom Webinar
Cost: complimentary

Speakers

Tracey Squire
Tracey Squire is a graduate researcher at Deakin University. Given her own experience as a breastfeeding mother and volunteering role in the breastfeeding space, she is passionate about using social theory to surface new understandings of mothering, maternal bodies, and breastfeeding experiences. Situated within feminist onto-epistemologies, specifically new materialist and matricentric, Tracey’s current research explores how breastfeeding support is produced (or excluded) in mothers’ social environments and how these relations of support shape mothers' embodied experiences.

Jayne Garrod
Jayne Garrod (she/her) is a PhD candidate in sociology at Deakin University. She has several years of experience as a lecturer and tutor in sociology and has worked on a diverse range of research projects as a research assistant. In addition to her scholarly experience, Jayne holds a master’s degree in social work and has several years of experience working in the field of disability support and advocacy. As a neurodivergent and physically disabled person, her research is informed by her social location and lived experience. She is passionate about empowerment and agency for disabled people and amplifying the voices of marginalised groups.