Listening as method: She speaks and the case for podcasting as a feminist research methodology in women's non-medicalised self-care

Women's non-medicalised self-care — the everyday, relational practices through which women tend to themselves — remains largely illegible to conventional health research methods. This article argues that podcasting constitutes a feminist research methodology rather than a supplementary dissemination tool and makes the case for its adoption in qualitative health research on women's wellbeing. The argument develops through an extended case study of She Speaks , an Australian podcast series produced by the author across four seasons and sixty-two episodes. Situated within arts-based research and feminist methodological traditions, the study treats the podcast itself as the research vehicle: a site where knowledge about self-care is produced, negotiated, and made public simultaneously. The design philosophy — audio over text, conversational co-production, and public-facing release — is examined as a set of theoretically-grounded methodological choices rather than pragmatic conveniences. Analysis reveals five methodological affordances of podcasting — intimacy, accessibility, co-construction, temporality, and reflexive transparency — that are epistemologically significant for feminist health inquiry. The case demonstrates what becomes speakable about self-care when women are offered unhurried, non-clinical space to speak it. Knowledge produced through this format is relational and emergent rather than pre-formed, and participants are positioned as knowers rather than subjects whose testimony requires expert interpretation. The article contributes to the growing literature on creative methodologies in qualitative health research, challenging the marginalisation of podcasting from rigorous inquiry. It advances the case that podcasting is differently rigorous in ways that matter for understanding women's lives, with implications for research funding, ethics frameworks, and journal evaluation criteria.