Shut in goes North

Shut-In Goes North (SGN) is a short film produced as part of the Mapping LOP PhD project, which examines the labour of participation within participatory and storytelling-based research. Initially conceived as a communication artefact to help collaborators understand the uneven, embodied, and often invisible work involved in taking part in research, the film became a central methodological and analytic contribution to a collaborative autoethnography.The film documents lived experiences of mobility, restriction, exhaustion, and adaptation, foregrounding how participation is shaped by capacity, access, and movement rather than by intention alone. Through its making, Shut-In Goes North actively informed the design of subsequent research tools, including participant diaries and story-mapping boards, and shaped the pacing, structure, and ethical framing of later data collection and dissemination methods.Rather than presenting participation as inherently inclusive or emancipatory, the film makes visible the emotional, physical, and temporal labour that participation demands, particularly for disabled and neurodivergent people. In doing so, it contributes to the development of Additive Research Methodologies, which do not seek to eliminate extraction, but instead work within its realities by consciously adding value, care, and agency for collaborators beyond the lifespan of the study.Shut-In Goes North functions simultaneously as research output, methodological intervention, and reflective artefact, and serves as both a foundation and catalyst for the wider Mapping LOP project