ABSTRACT. In this article, we discuss what we have learned about love and how it is perceived in academia. We wish to celebrate some of the complex global histories and contemporary practices of love as a political concept. While the concept of care is much more common than love in Eurocentric research that attends to issues of social justice, we suggest that love has much to offer the conversation. Following varied contributions from Black feminist, Indigenous and postcolonial lines of thought and drawing from sources across the social sciences, arts and humanities, we approach love as a choice of action that requires an open and honest atmosphere of trust and a collective will to work towards shared wellbeing. Based on this conceptualisation of love, we propose love as a premise and source of praxis for ethical research.

Keywords: love; research ethics; ethical research; change; refusal

How to cite: Kauhanen, I., & Russial, M. (2025). For the love of research. Knowledge Cultures, 13(1), 50-81. doi: 10.22381/kc13120253

Received 12 February, 2025 • Received in revised form April 6, 2025
Accepted April 7, 2025 • Available online May 1, 2025