From emotional interruptions to wilful disruptions: Zine-making as a post-qualitative method for locating, articulating, navigating, and doing emotion in research

This paper explores emotion in academic research through creative participatory methods. Starting from moments of emotional interruption in our own academic journeys, we examine the generative power of emotion in contrast to higher education cultures that marginalise it within the research process. We then present Researchers Don't Cry?!, a post-qualitative research project which worked with early career researchers to locate, articulate, navigate, and do emotion through zine-making. This wilful disruption generated data on emotion as it intersected participants’ research while revealing and reshaping their personal understandings. Through sharing their zines with one another, they forged a sense of connection. In doing so, zine-making worked as method, as practice: convening a community of researchers animated through emotion. We end by reflecting on the challenges of leading this research in traditional academic settings, highlighting the need for further research on, with, and for emotion as it unfolds across the research landscape.