Through the course of this book I have sought to address the question on the importance of embodied research by first highlighting the theoretical underpinnings of embodiment and second by providing examples of embodied research which made use of creative and participatory approaches with migrant, refugee and asylum-seeking women in London. Epistemologies such as post-phenomenology, sensory and affective approaches concur that the body is material, socially constructed and the social relations it produces are generative and agentic. By looking at the intellectual tradition where embodiment is situated, this book interrogates the process of doing embodied research with migrant women in London. Drawing in particular on feminist research, it pays attention to the embodied positionalities of researcher and research participants during the research process and questions the role of embodied research as a practice aimed at inscribing material and discursive dimensions of the body at each stage of the research process. The book also reviews the experience of voluntary and community organisations using embodied approaches to engage their service users, often of migrant origin, and grassroots organisations’ leading role in engaging local communities in effective ways. The imaginative grassroots work carried out by women and migrant organisations in London to engage service users foregrounds the opportunity to reflect on the overlaps and continuities with the work done by academic researchers who use participatory and creative methods to engage research participants.

In the first part of the book, key examples of embodied, creative and participatory research in the field of diversity and migration are outlined and critically discussed. The second part of the book draws on my own experience of using participatory and creative research with migrant women in London. Here I offer some considerations on reflexivity highlighting how the subject positions of researchers and research participants (including the power relations in place during the research process) influence, shape and ultimately affect the research process. The site of narration is in itself constructed and disentangling the positionalities at stake is crucial for feminist research. My own positionality as a researcher was negotiated within the groups in the course of the two research projects discussed in Chapters 4 and 5 despite the intrinsic ambiguity of the role of the researcher in social research.