Emotional messiness of legal document analysis: Working with last wills and testaments

Abstract This piece offers a reflection on the messiness of looking at legal documents through an emotional lens, considering both the emotions embedded and created by the document and those engendered in the researcher during the research process. I want to question and reflect on researcher positionality and how it changes during the process of research and emotional responses to the data, contrasting with the idea of wills being dry legal documents and any attempt of a researcher being objective. In particular, I consider emotional responses to the identification of cherished objects within an estate and their personal resonance.