Navigating Life Changes: From Apartment Hunting to Research Projects

Well, it is Friyay! I have made it another week closer to apartment hunting and move in day at UC Davis. I am excited! Can’t you tell? Ha! It always seems like there is piles and piles of stuff going on in my life and there is no shortage of excitement. Every week I go to therapy and its like woah… so much happened this week. Honestly, I am not going to have any idea of what to do with all of my free time come the fall. I am going to go stir crazy! Maybe, I end up taking on lots of projects to fill the time. I am nervous and so… so… excited for this new chapter in my life and I am actually not being sarcastic. Weird, right? 

In the vein of adding stuff to my plate, I received an email for a call for proposal for potential article submissions. This call is exactly in the field of my current research project on kink and I believe would be a perfect fit. However, I am modifying the scope a bit to be more article length and and focusing on the auto-ethnographic. I don’t want to completely box out my full book but I want to utilize a different view and I think this will work how my brain thinks that it will. So my updated research questions will be the following – 

• How do I, as a transwoman, experience and interpret the sonic environment of BDSM dungeons in relation to intimacy, power and identity? 
• How do other trans and queer individuals perceive the role of music in shaping emotional, sensory and power dynamics in dungeon spaces?
• What similarities and differences emerge between m personal experiences and those of my interviewees regarding dungeon soundscapes?
• How do DJs, venue organizers and dungeon-goers curate or respond to the music in these spaces?
• What methodologies can best capture the intersection of music, BDSM and queer embodiment within an auto-ethnographic and interview based framework?

Maybe I am getting ahead of myself since I only have to have the proposal in by June and the decisions come out in August. Ha! They come out!  Forgive my terrible puns. The, first draft would be due sometime in January. So… I figure that it makes sense to get going on the research on what I can do and then when I get to Davis see about mentor for the IRB process. 

Looking into it, I will still have to get IRB approval but the question is to what extent. If I keep the questions specifically about the music and emotion rather than including the intricacies of the power and play dynamics with the associated intersection to the overall goal, it appears that I would qualify for an exemption status. But, I don’t that this paper would have the full scope by not including those more detailed questions and that would require a full review. This is definitely something that I want help from a mentor. At least there are portions of the project that I can work on while making a better determination as to the scope of involvement for the interviewees. 

I am glad that my best friend is an acountibillibuddy on this because I tend to get sidetracked – see last post about working towards another project. She is amazing and she definitely kicks me in the rear and calls me out on my shit. So people, make sure when you need help to ask because we cannot always do things on our own. With the timeline being so short on this project, I need to make sure that I am accountable to myself and to achieve that – Besties are there for you.