Area (2008) 40.2, 208 – 217 Area Vol. 40 No. 2, pp. 208 – 217, 2008 ISSN 0004-0894 © The Authors. Journal compilation © Royal Geographical Society (with The Institute of British Geographers) 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd Using ‘the body’ as an ‘instrument of research’: kimch’i and pavlova Robyn Longhurst*, Elsie Ho** and Lynda Johnston* *Department of Geography, Tourism and Environmental Planning, University of Waikato, Hamilton, Aotearoa New Zealand Email: robynl@waikato.ac.nz **Migration Research Group, University of Waikato, Hamilton, Aotearoa New Zealand Revised manuscript received 18 December 2007 Often researchers position themselves in relation to race, age and gender, but the body is less often discussed as an actual ‘instrument of research’. We aim to extend thinking on this point by reflecting on a project we conducted on migrant women and food in New Zealand. We present a vignette as an example of how we used our bodies as ‘instruments of research’ at a ‘shared lunch’ attended by new migrants from a range of different countries. At the lunch some combined on their plates spicy dishes such as kimch’i (fermented vegetables) and sweet dishes such as pavlova (a meringue dessert). For others this combination prompted feelings of disgust. We conclude that the body is a primary tool through which all interactions and emotions filter in accessing research subjects and their geographies. Key words: New Zealand, food, migrants, disgust, bodies, embodied knowing Introduction In a progress report entitled ‘Qualitative methods: touchy, feely, look-see?’, Mike Crang questions ‘whether methods often derided for being somehow soft and “touchy-feely” have in fact been rather limited in touching and feeling’ (2003, 494). Crang continues that although geographers have over the past few years begun to include ‘the body’ in their research topics ‘these ideas have had a muted impact in terms of thinking through qualitative research practice’ (Crang 2003, 499). We agree with Crang that in much qualitative research the bodies of researchers tend to become a kind of ‘ghostly absence’ (2003, 499). Researchers sometimes position themselves in relation to race, age, gender and so on, but other aspects of body–space relations such as smells, tastes, gestures, reactions, clothing, glances and touches often slip away unnoticed and/or undocumented. There is now an enormous amount of critical geographic scholarship on the body and the various ways in which bodies and spatiality are closely entwined (Probyn 2003) and yet it has taken some time for these arguments to extend into the realm of methods and methodology. Bodies are always located (Longhurst 2001; Nast and Pile 1998) and this includes in ‘the field’. Bodies are also always inter- pellated by a range of ideological practices and this includes research practices. Researchers and participants perform different embodied subjectivities (sometimes contradictory) in different spaces. Bodies produce space and knowledge, and space and knowledge produce bodies. Being and knowing cannot be easily separated. There is less of a distinction between ontology and epistemology than might have earlier been assumed. In this article we build on Crang’s ideas on qualitative methods and the embodied subjectivities of both researchers and participants (not that these are always mutually exclusive categories) by reflecting