Qualitative inquiry with women in poverty in Mexico City: reflections on the emotional responses of a research team

While conducting a qualitative inquiry involving in-depth interviews on the perceptions of health risks within a group of profoundly poor urban families in the southern part of Mexico City, Martínez-Salgado and her interdisciplinary team of women interviewers got involved in emotionally complex situations with the women participants in the study. In this article, Martínez-Salgado reflects on the situations she and her research team encountered and on the emotional experiences they underwent doing this research. She discusses how a critical psychoanalytical perspective shaped the study, describes their fieldwork experiences, and addresses how the research team reacted to and coped with emotionally charged research situations. To conclude, the article addresses the importance of reflecting on and providing testimonies of the emotional aspects of doing qualitative research that documents the unfairness of the situation in which poor women and their families live.