Effectively addressing wicked problems requires collaborative, embedded action. But, in many cases, scholarly commitments, social justice, privilege, and precarity collide in ways that make it difficult for community-engaged scholars to ethically navigate competing duties. This article presents our efforts to support reciprocal community engagement in addressing cancer- obesity comorbidity and risk coincidence in underserved communities. Partnering with community healthcare professionals, we conducted an adapted Systems Ethnography/Qualitative Modeling (SEQM) study. SEQM offers an alternative ethical framework for community-engaged research, one that supports reciprocity through enabling participant-centered community self-definition, goal setting, and solution identification.

Drawing on our experiences with qualitative research involving health and medical topics to which we have a personal connection, this dialogue asks scholars in RHM to consider key methodological issues in embodied research by exploring: the choice to take up inquiries with which we have personal connections; the ethics of representation within these projects; and determining if, how, when, and to what degree we should reveal these connections in the research write-ups themselves. Our conversation is characterized by a “heuristic orientation”—defined as intuitive, creative, and generative. We conclude by offering a heuristic tool for researchers to use as they make crucial decisions in embodied research in RHM.

research-article Share on Review of "Rhetoric in the Flesh: Trained Vision, Technical Expertise, and the Gross Anatomy Lab. by T. Kenny Fountain" New York, NY: Routledge, 2014. Author: Molly Kessler University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee University of Wisconsin, MilwaukeeView Profile Authors Info & Claims Communication Design QuarterlyVolume 3Issue 4August 2015 pp 91–96https://doi.org/10.1145/2826972.2826982Published:17 September 2015Publication History 0citation20DownloadsMetricsTotal Citations0Total Downloads20Last 12 Months4Last 6 weeks1 Get Citation AlertsNew Citation Alert added!This alert has been successfully added and will be sent to:You will be notified whenever a record that you have chosen has been cited.To manage your alert preferences, click on the button below.Manage my Alerts New Citation Alert!Please log in to your account Save to BinderSave to BinderCreate a New BinderNameCancelCreateExport CitationPublisher SiteGet Access