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Researchers'
Positionalities and Experiences Mediating Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans-identified
and Queer Research as a Personal and Cultural Practice
SAGE Publications, Inc.200710.1177/0967550706072256
André P.Grace
University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada, andre.grace@ualberta.ca
FionaCavanagh
University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada
CandiceEnnis-Williams
University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada
KristopherWells
University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada
Address
for correspondence: Dr. André P. Grace, Department of Educational Policy Studies,
7-104 Education North, University of Alberta, Canada, T6G 2G5; Email: andre.grace@ualberta.ca
In presenting an example
of reflexive autoethnographic research, this paper investigates researchers'
positionalities and how researchers mediate LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual,
trans-identified and queer) research as a situated research practice. It
uses narratives of four co-researchers' identity positions and experiences
to explore each researcher's self-reflexive personal, which is a term
we use to name our engagement with issues of presence, place, acting, trust,
rapport, authority and authenticity in the narrative-inquiry process. In
taking up Rosaldo's (1989; 1993) theme the researcher as the researched
, the paper challenges researchers to scrutinize contexts, relationships,
dispositions, constructs and affiliations that limit research to the parameters
of heteronormative assumptions. Here the paper examines issues of researcher
legitimacy in relation to researchers' identity positions, experiences and
relationships, and the social responsibility of researchers in relation to
situated LGBTQ research. As well, the paper considers the political and professional
ramifications of challenges, possibilities and risks associated with mediating
LGBTQ research in the intersection of the personal and the cultural.
SITUATING
OUR LGBTQ RESEARCH AS A REFLEXIVE AUTOETHNOGRAPHIC ENGAGEMENT During a study
of welfare-and-work issues impacting LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans-identified
and queer) teachers in school settings in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, we – André as principal investigator and
340
Fiona,
Candice and Kris as three graduate research assistants – worked together
as co-researchers. In the first phase of our research, we examined national
and provincial legal, legislative and educational policy changes with import
for the welfare and work of Alberta's LGBTQ teachers. In the second phase,
we ascertained the degree to which these changes have influenced the everyday
lives and work of six LGBTQ teachers who taught in the Edmonton area. We conducted
open-ended interviews and focus groups with the research participants, and
engaged them in writing poetry and narrative vignettes as we explored these
teachers' socially and culturally constructed identity positions, their lived
and variously repre- sented experiences in schools, and their self/institutional
relationships. This research was supported by two university operating grants
intended to advance social-science scholarship, as well as by an operating
grant from the Alberta Advisory Committee for Educational Studies. As part
of our research proposal, we built in a facet to enable us to explore our
connections as researchers to the research process and to one another. Inspired
by Rosaldo's (1989; 1993) emphasis on the researcher as the researched, we
felt it was vital to investigate the impact of our researcher subjectivities
and positionalities on our involvement in this LGBTQ research project. We
researched ourselves so we could discuss our per- spectives, impressions,
feelings, thoughts and reactions within a reflexive autoethnographic engagement
where the sharing and questioning of per- sonal and cultural experiences as
well as the interpreting of the experi- ences of co-researchers were integral
parts of engaging the researcher as the researched. As well, we wanted to
explore mediating LGBTQ research in terms of particular purposes, intentions
and strategies that link research to advocacy and cultural work. In this light,
Fiona describes our starting perspective. To engage in LGBTQ research is to
embrace and question fluid identity positions and to be committed to openness.
Researchers – both LGBTQ and non-LGBTQ – have to develop high
degrees of self-awareness, exploring their individual capacities to know and
understand sex, sexual, and gender differences. Perhaps most importantly,
researchers need to be self-reflexive, linking knowledge and understanding
gained to actions taken to give LGBTQ persons presence and place in education
and other communities where they can be visible and proud, respected and valued.
Exploring this perspective engaged us in reflexive autoethnographic research
in which interpretive `stories [are] written in an autobiographical genre
about the relationship of self, other, and culture' (Ellis and Berger, 2003:
467). In writing about ourselves as researchers, we wanted to engage in an
investigative process that would help us build deeper and richer collective
understanding of our identity positions and research
341
interests
and experiences (Ellis and Berger, 2003; Ellis and Bochner, 2000). Thus we
shared `reflexive, experimental, autobiographical, and vulnerable texts' that
each co-researcher constructed about being involved in the Alberta study (Ellis
and Bochner, 2000: 735). Collectively, these textured stories provided a focal
point for our introspection and an authen- tic way to access researchers'
voices (Clandinin and Connelly, 1998; Grace and Benson, 2000; Grace et al.,
2004; Lather and Smithies, 1997). Moreover, as autoethnographic accounts,
they also created a focal point for LGBTQ consciousness-raising and interpretive
analysis of connec- tions between the personal and the cultural. Ellis and
Bochner (2000: 739) describe this kind of analysis: Back and forth autoethnographers
gaze, first through an ethnographic wide- angle lens, focusing outward on
social and cultural aspects of their personal experience; then, they look
inward, exposing a vulnerable self that is moved by and may move through,
refract, and resist cultural interpretations. As we researched ourselves,
we examined the challenges and risks of engaging in LGBTQ research from our
respective locations. Our deliber- ations are captured here as we bring together
each researcher's narrative vignettes to form a co-constructed narrative.
As Ellis and Berger (2003: 486) relate, `Co-constructed stories sometimes
retain individual voices ... but the co-constructed version presented is still
the agreed-upon collective story.' For the four of us, this is our shared
and agreed-upon collective story. It takes up the intricacies of mediating
LGBTQ research space, and it reflects upon the degree to which each researcher
felt affiliated with one another and the LGBTQ research project. The process
of co-constructing our narrative started with the notes from the individual
journals that each co-researcher kept during the study. It continued with
individual reflective writing of narrative vignettes, which became sites for
personal and cultural analyses. After we drafted our vignettes, we shared
them with one another in researcher discussion groups, which served as dialogic
encoun- ters aimed at building knowledge and understanding of the self and
other as researchers. We were guided by an ethics of mutual respect that required
openness in terms of sharing feelings and engaging tensions, which we viewed
as integral parts of presenting honest and encompassing reflection. As we
shared, we tried to keep personal/experiential aspects of engaging in the
research in dynamic relationship with the culture of LGBTQ research, a culture
we were trying to understand and describe. This involved us in an iterative
process in which each co-researcher considered the interpretations and feedback
of colleagues as the writing- and-editing process continued. Throughout this
process interpretation was integral, helping us to interrogate our experiences
so we did not see them as sufficient explanations or uncontestable evidence
(Lather and Smithies,
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1997; Scott, 1992). In adhering to the perspective that `all research is interpretive'
(Denzin and Lincoln, 2000: 19), we were also guided by the perspective that
theorizing and telling ought to be in dynamic equilibrium, mutually informing
one another in the intricate process of narrative inquiry and interpretation
(Grace and Benson, 2000; Grace et al., 2004). In this paper, we consider each
researcher's self-reflexive personal, which is a term we use to name our engagement
with issues of presence, place, acting, trust, rapport, authority and authenticity
in the narrative- inquiry process. Having challenged one another to scrutinize
contexts, relationships, dispositions, constructs and affiliations that might
limit our research to the parameters of heteronormative assumptions (Honeychurch,
1996), we reflect on our social and cultural positionalities in relation to
LGBTQ research as a situated practice, and we take up the issue of researcher
legitimacy. We examine how researchers' identity positions and experiences
impact on research practice and ensuing co-researcher rela- tionships. We
consider the challenges, possibilities and risks associated with mediating
LGBTQ research in the intersection of the personal and the cultural, which
have political and professional ramifications. MEDIATING LGBTQ RESEARCH: TAKING
UP MULTIPLE ROLES AS RESEARCHERS Researchers as advocates and risk-takers
Throughout the Alberta study we examined how researchers influence the research
endeavour as both knowledge production and a situated practice (Lather and
Smithies, 1997). Since we wanted our research to be reflexive, we analysed
the role of the situated researcher who `approaches the world with a set of
ideas, a framework (theory, ontology) that specifies a set of questions (epistemology)
that he or she then examines in specific ways (methodology, analysis)' (Denzin
and Lincoln, 2000: 18). Writing three years earlier, Britzman (1997: 32) had
already described such analysis as `exploring the tangles of implication'.
This means that researchers exam- ine how they are located in research practice
and how their self-interests may generate challenges, risks and possibilities
for the research partici- pants, the readers of research reports, and indeed
themselves. In this con- text, speaking, listening, being heard and writing
during a research endeavour are political processes with their own deterrents
or motivations. Fine et al. (2000) believe that social-science researchers
ought to conduct useful research and be advocates for the disenfranchised.
We agree, asserting that our collective political task in this study has been
to link our research to advocacy so LGBTQ teachers are supported in policy
and practice in schools as teachers' workplaces. LGBTQ research should
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be about
building our capacities to know and act so we can engage in ethical, just
and democratic work to counteract those elements of a dominant moral and political
that still subjugate LGBTQ identity positions. This work involves challenging
the power of a dominant culture– language–power nexus to pigeonhole
LGBTQ persons in moral and polit- ical terms that variously defile, demean,
or dismiss an array of sex, sexual and gender differences. From this perspective
as researchers, we challenge the traditional `bracketing of the researcher's
world' (Fine et al., 2000: 108), and we work to be more responsive and responsible
cultural workers for social justice. However, we proceed cognizant of the
specific risks that LGBTQ research poses. For example, Taylor and Raeburn
(1995), in a study that focused on just LGB sociologists, examined academic
career outcomes as possible effects of taking risks to confront heteronormativity
and engage in advocacy. They found that more visible LGB sociologists often
have explicitly political intentions as they engage in LGBTQ research and
publishing, and that their resistance can have personal and professional consequences.
Furthermore, they found that these sociologists also became easier targets
of discrimination and retaliatory career consequences that included: `1) discrimination
in hiring; 2) bias in tenure and promotion; 3) exclusion from social and professional
networks; 4) devaluation of scholarly work on gay and lesbian topics; and
5) harassment and intimida- tion' (Taylor and Raeburn, 1995: 262). Thus personal
and professional risk-taking requires courage, persistence and resilience.
Moreover, vulnerability comes with visibility. In this light, André speaks
about his own risk-taking in terms of his hopes, needs, and concerns. I am
always conscious of the risks associated with doing LGBTQ research not only
in terms of how they might affect me, but also in terms of how they might
affect graduate students who work with me. If I am principal investigator
on a research project in which graduate students have roles as co-researchers,
then I have to be responsive and responsible, and consider how their engagement
might translate into specific consequences for them in terms of their career
paths. Indeed on several occasions in the past I have helped graduate students
cope with instructors or supervisory committee members who were variously
homophobic, ignorant of LGBTQ identities and differences, or at best oblivious
to them. As they questioned these students about their LGBTQ research, they
asked such homonegative questions as: `Do you have to use the word “queer”?'
and `Isn't your research too political?' I have to respond in these situations.
When I started doctoral studies I swore I would never be closeted again. For
me, hiding my gayness as a schoolteacher had been an erosion of my whole self,
my true self. I always felt like a hypocrite living a fraudulent life, an
impostor still sending the message historically cloaked in ignorance and fear
that being
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gay
is wrong. I had to change that. As I thought about being an academic, I knew
that I wanted to be visible and present to LGBTQ or questioning students.
Thankfully, I work in a university setting where I have that luxury. I work
to advance queer in theory and in practice, but like many academics I question
queer as a still emerging way to understand sex, sexual and gender differences.
Vicars (2006) notes that queer, as the name of a theory and a way of being,
is much contested. I believe such contestation is necessary to expose the
absences in queer theorizing. For example, queer declares that sex, sexual
and gender differences are fluid, which helps move us away from the limits
of binaries like male/female and heterosexual/homosexual. Paradoxically though,
in advancing the notion of fluidity, queer limits the possibility of action
by denying the possibility of closure of identity positions, even if only
in particular moments and spaces. Despite the risk of essentialism, such closure
is needed to enable discussions that link subjectivity to agency in action
planning for social and cultural change that abets full LGBTQ citizenship.
From this perspective, queer is not only fickle about identity positions,
but it is also fickle, by default, about action abetting LGBTQ inclusion.
In this paper the four co-researchers talk about being gay men and heterosexual
women as identity positions that enable us to think about our roles in research
and advocacy. However, we still value queer theorizing so we can link queer
reflexivity to reflexive autoethnography. Vicars (2006: 23) suggests that
a `Queer reflexivity raises the significance of employing ontology for unsettling
thinking about reality, agency and ways of being and relating.' I would also
suggest that a queer reflexivity can raise the significance of employing epistemology
for disturbing belief systems and individual dispositions tied to heteronormative
tradition and other limits of history. Researchers as witnesses In addition
to taking up roles as advocates and risk-takers, those who mediate LGBTQ research
should also consider their roles as witnesses in the research process. Here
a turn to poststructural practices of educational inquiry is helpful. St.
Pierre (1997: 279) depicts such practices as a `search for other language
and other philosophical and political position- ings that might produce more
ethical and useful work in a postfounda- tional world'. Like these research
practices focused on transformation, LGBTQ research as a situated practice
can place research in a political realm of possibility. In this open realm,
the provisional and contingent are welcomed replacements for the ordering
and structuring of people, politics and ideas through scientized language
and practices that can do
345
damage
to unprivileged lives (St. Pierre, 1997). This requires a `theory of situated
methodology' (Lather, 1997: 233) that places LGBTQ research in dynamic equilibrium
with LGBTQ theorizing (as a series of lenses to examine outsider subjectivities,
positionalities, knowledge, language and cultural politics) and LGBTQ histories
(as spaces to explore advocacy, risk-taking and social-justice issues over
time and tides). Within a theory of situated methodology, researchers are
positioned as witnesses, not experts. Witnesses give `testimony to the lives
of others, with subtextual and intertextual practices that displace direct
commentary on such testi- mony' (Lather, 1997: 252). As Lather (1997) describes
it, this process of witnessing the situated and the particular is a postfoundational
reposition- ing of research as practice. It becomes a way for researchers
to question researcher subjectivities and positionalities as a key question
is raised: Who should witness in conducting LGBTQ research? André's narrative
vignette takes up this question as he speaks to the issue of acquiring research
assistants to conduct the Alberta study. My reflection begins with a discussion
the four co-researchers had at the end of the Alberta study. We had all met
for a final sharing of personal thoughts and feelings about our involvement.
I felt tired, emotional and pensive that day as I thought about how doing
this research had affected me. I also thought about how much this research
served as a profound reminder of my teaching experience as a closeted, gay
teacher in Roman Catholic schools for fifteen years. I associate aspects of
that experience with mental anguish, emotional stress, guarded behaviour,
bad decision-making and physical sickness. In retrospect, when I started this
research project I had only limited understanding of its parameters and effects.
I did have personal fears about working with my co-researchers. I was particularly
concerned about ending up with non-LGBTQ research assistants who might prove
to be uncomfortable or disconnected to the point of incapacity in the process
of conducting LGBTQ research. I wondered, `What biases will they bring to
the research project? What if they're homophobic? What if they're just insecure?'
(Of course, these were questions I also had to ask myself. As the research
unfolded, I came to think more deeply about my personal investment in the
research project, and how my attitudes, values, beliefs and internalized feelings
impacted my involvement.) I also wondered, `Would non-LGBTQ research assistants
have reservations about engaging in LGBTQ research? Would they decline for
fear of being labelled queer? Was I overreacting?' The fact that I had had
these reservations was revisited during the group discussion. At one point
I acknowledged Candice, a co-researcher who identified as a heterosexual married
woman and mother of a young son. When I affirmed her commitment and courage
in her work as a co-researcher, Kris, the only queer research assistant working
on the project
346
and
someone who had worked with me prior to doing this research, interjected,
`That's not what you said at the start!' In that moment I felt very uncomfortable
and lost for words. Yes, I had – perhaps understandably, perhaps unwittingly – shared my reservations about Candice with Kris. However, I thought, `Why did
Kris have to bring this up now?' After all, things had worked out. From the
time I contacted Candice to arrange a meeting to discuss my research, she
had expressed interest in working with me. She came to my office several times
to chat about the research before we started the project. Once she brought
her son. I liked Candice's energy. She always asked questions, and she also
asked for books and journal articles so she could read more about LGBTQ theorizing.
From the beginning she was honest about coming to the research process fearful,
not knowing a lot, and wanting to learn. It is a testament to the rapport,
trust and ability to share that had come to mark interactions among the co-researchers
that Kris's comment provided impetus for dialogue. Candice took the lead and
asked, `How do you both feel now about our involvement?' The `our' was in
reference to Fiona, another research assistant who identified as a heterosexual
woman. Fiona joined the research team a term after Candice had begun her work.
Both she and Candice had sensed that Kris and I were not convinced that they,
as heterosexual researchers, should be engaged in LGBTQ research. Indeed,
they acknowledged that they had not been convinced themselves. Throughout
the research process, they wondered if they could claim knowledge and understanding
since they had not lived queer, which involves being queer and acting queer.
Living queer also involves becoming and belonging as a queer person, and contesting,
resisting and enjoying moves and moments that bring LGBTQ persons closer to
experiencing the rights and privileges of full citizenship. Both Fiona and
Candice acknowledged that they had struggled with feelings of being outsiders,
intruders and even impostors. Fiona also related that her involvement in the
research project had made her aware that she is caught up in heterosexism
to the point of being oblivious to it. She wondered if she might be homophobic
because she felt uncomfortable when friends asked her why she had queer theory
books in her office. Kris and I participated in this dialogue, speaking to
issues and tensions involved in doing LGBTQ research. We recognized and acknowledged
that both Candice and Fiona had gone through quite an experience as co-researchers
finding space and place in this project. We drew parallels to what LGBTQ persons
go through everyday as they negotiate their way in a heteronormative world.
I spoke about ways in which we all grapple with heterosexism and homophobia.
Kris wondered how the dynamics might have changed if, among other intersecting
differences, one of the co-researchers had been Two Spirit (historically
a bisexual Aboriginal leader and medicine person), a lesbian, or a heterosexual
male.
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Why
was I so affected by Kris's comment? While I accepted it as a product of
his desire and commitment to engage in LGBTQ research, I was, in an immediate
sense, hyper-aware of how difficult it was for Candice and Fiona to talk about
their roles as non-LGBTQ researchers during the co- researchers' discussion.
Their distress was evident in their facial expressions, their body language,
the pausing, the careful choice of their heartfelt words, and the emotion
in their voices. In a broader research sense, I was reminded how much I have
to learn about my role as a queer researcher who wants to build open, strong
relationships with colleague researchers and research participants – LGBTQ and non-LGBTQ. Kris's comment also reminded me that, as a queer researcher
who comes to LGBTQ research with particular interests and good intentions,
I have to research myself continuously. I have to question what I bring to
the research process, including my biases and resistances. Only then can I
begin to witness. Researchers who include a focus on the self-reflexive personal
in conducting LGBTQ research acknowledge the impact of their subjectivities
and posi- tionalities, including the ways heterosexism and homophobia are
imprinted and internalized in their dispositional profiles. In keeping with
Honeychurch's (1996) perspective that all researchers are part of some socially
and culturally constructed world in space and time, researchers can see themselves
as never insulated, never isolated from the research process. Since they
perform research acts from situated, lived bodies, researchers can investigate
how the authenticity of their research is, in part, `dependent upon and relative
to the individual sexually embodied researcher(s)' (Honeychurch, 1996: 346).
From the perspective of the researcher as the researched, researchers should
ask: What are the social, cul- tural, political and ethical implications of
naming one's sex, sexual and gender differences in the research process? How
will such naming add to the intricacies of speaking and being heard? Does
naming mean more trouble in light of Britzman's (1997: 31) assertion that
`the difficulty is in understand- ing one's own voice even as one strains
to hear the voice of the other'? How should researchers write about their
research in regard to presenting findings, representing themselves and others,
and reaching desired audiences? How might they advocate for those whose lives
and experiences are studied? Problematizing a researcher's non-LGBTQ positionality
in conducting LGBTQ research When researchers who engage in LGBTQ research
are non-LGBTQ, key questions arise: Can non-LGBTQ researchers study LGBTQ
lives? Or do you have to be and live within the LGBTQ spectrum in order to
participate in LGBTQ research? Since non-LGBTQ researchers do not intimately
348
know
about LGBTQ subjectivities and positionalities in terms of being/desiring/acting,
how connected are they when they conduct LGBTQ research? Those who take up
these questions deliberate whether a non- LGBTQ researcher can really be in
tune with LGBTQ contexts, disposi- tions, and relationships, and whether they
can function outside of `privileged heterosexualized theory and practice,
[which] has been [histor- ically] constituted as the entirety of epistemology
and praxis' (Honeychurch, 1996: 344). While non-LGBTQ researchers may know
enough about LGBTQ theorizing to negotiate complex LGBTQ terrain (albeit as
a difficult and unpredictable journey), some researchers who have not lived
queer question whether they can engage methods and write texts that truly
transgress the boundaries of historically and culturally consti- tuted heteronormalized
discourses and research models. For example, in his study of the identity
struggles of gay and bisexual college men, Rhoads (1997a; 1997b), a non-LGBTQ
researcher, attempted to address what he perceived as the limits of his heterosexual
positionality in conducting gay and bisexual research by turning to a circle
of queer students whom he knew at his university. This queer advisory panel
shared knowledge and insights that helped him to develop research strategies
and questions. They also helped him by providing advice as he framed his research,
and by pro- viding feedback as he analysed and wrote about his research findings.
Non-LGBTQ researchers, like LGBTQ researchers, have to acknowl- edge their
subjectivities and positionalities, including their dispositional profiles,
in conducting LGBTQ research. They have to avoid the pitfalls of using heterosexual/homosexual
and male/female binaries, which reinscribe particular sex, sexual and gender
differences as the normal ones. Non-LGBTQ researchers have to examine how
the constitution of their lives and locations within a heteronormative context
impacts their capacities and abilities to engage in LGBTQ research. At the
same time, they have to consider `how the researcher maintains and legitimizes
his [or her] own (sex, sexual and gender) coherency' (Britzman, 1997: 33).
As they move on to LGBTQ research terrain, non-LGBTQ researchers may discover
that they need to learn more about their own sex, sexual and gender differences
as they research in new contextual and relational settings. They also have
to expand their learning about LGBTQ perspectives, and how a spectrum of desires,
orientations and experiences contributes to the discursive construction of
LGBTQ subjectivities and positionalities in particular times and spaces. During
the Alberta study, Fiona and Candice were non-LGBTQ researchers who had many
questions about themselves, LGBTQ research, and their presence and place in
it. Their narrative vignettes recounting how they negotiated their entry into
the research project provide reflexive analy- ses of their roles as outsider
researchers navigating LGBTQ research terrain.
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Fiona:
A letter sent via campus mail provided a paid opportunity to work on a research
project. The research assignment is lucidly captured in a moment of concern.
I would be working on a queer research project. My first reaction – I am an anxious heterosexual woman, wondering and wanting to protect herself.
How will I be affected by this research? My predominant emotion – a
raw fear of being attached to a project that others might view negatively.
Will my involvement affect the achievement of my academic goals? Will it be
seen as a dark stain on my curriculum vitae? The preoccupation with me is
overwhelming! Why do I feel the need to protect myself? Prior to taking up
this work as a research assistant, I tried to rationalize my involvement.
My thoughts – I can gain valuable qualitative research skills and experience.
Maybe something tangible can be extracted from the research topic itself.
My precise emotions were those of complete detachment and an obsession with
the maintenance of my position solely as an outside researcher. I would be
a good researcher, and I would complete assigned tasks. LGBTQ co-researchers
and research participants were irrelevant to me at this point, removed from
my thoughts of self-concern. However, I felt emotional and a little bewildered
as I started on a research journey I sensed would be multi-faceted, complex
and contradictory. When André used the phrase `being/desiring/acting queer',
I started to wonder what I really knew about LGBTQ people. I worried. As I
was exposed to the lived experiences of LGBTQ persons, would I, in turn, be
exposed as someone too ignorant of that experience to be studying it? I have
always felt that doing qualitative research is like a movement within a rhythm
that is constructed by a social reality, embodied relationships and a language
in which that reality is embedded. Would I be in tune with a queer research
rhythm? Would I be able to contribute in meaningful ways as a heterosexual
researcher, and perhaps even enhance the research process? Would I be comfortable
researching me and reflecting on my sexual orientation, which would be in
the minority in this research project? Many more questions came as the research
project unfolded. The project opened up a window into a queer lifeworld that
was a new experience for me. Oh yes, I told a few people that the office I
shared with two gay graduate students was an LGBTQ positive space. However,
as I came to terms with my discomfort around engaging in LGBTQ research, I
wondered if I was an LGBTQ positive space. Confronting my own heterosexism
and homophobia became a key moment for me in the research process. It enabled
me to explore how I was implicated and embedded in the stories, the analysis
and the evolution of the project. Confronting came, in part, through listening
to the sheer emotion, pain, courage and realities of the LGBTQ persons engaged
in the research process. I came face to face with their real lives and the
psychological and emotional burdens that queer individuals carry because heterosexuality
is so historically and culturally sacred, so seemingly impenetrable.
350
Confronting
my own homophobia has been a catalyst for engaging new lenses to examine language,
power, justice, culture and human actions. It is an ongoing process. It happens
when I examine who I am and how I come to knowledge in a heteronormative world.
This engagement helps me see how I am involved and implicated when I conduct
educational research. It reminds me that I need to be self aware, and to think
continuously about what I'm doing. Candice: The month before I began work
as a research assistant, I realized that the term to come would be no ordinary
one for me. I received a phone call from André who wanted to chat about the
upcoming research project. I had learned a few months earlier that I had been
successful in securing a departmental research assistantship for January to
April – news well received since I'd be returning to school full-time
after a maternity leave. I really needed the extra financial security and
a more flexible work schedule. `Hi, this is André,' the caller announced,
`and I'd like to tell you a little about the research we'll be doing together.'
`Okay,' I responded excitedly. I was anxious to find out who André was and
what we would be investigating. During the conversation, I remember reassuring
André that I would be quite delighted to participate in a study of welfare-and-work
issues for LGBTQ teachers. However, I also admit that after the phone call
I spent most of the afternoon contemplating whether I wanted to get involved
in this type of research. I wondered whether it was `appropriate' research
for me – after all, I'm heterosexual, a new mom with a baby son, and
a Roman Catholic. I felt that maybe I should pull out of this research completely.
Surely there must be other research assistantships available to me. What if
people start to think that I'm gay, by association? Moreover, how can I be
an effective part of this research team? I'm heterosexual. I don't really
understand. And they will know that I don't understand. Suddenly I felt very
ashamed and somewhat embarrassed. Here I am agonizing over what I should engage
in as a `suitable' research activity – me, the same person who a month
ago felt she was losing touch with herself amid dirty diapers and feedings.
Me – a new mother who wants to raise her son to respect and value others.
How can I not do this? Of course, I will meet with André next Wednesday. And
a few weeks later, when the interviews begin ... The day begins with the alarm
failing to go off at 6:00 am. I awake in a panic. I need to be on campus early
this morning. The first interview with a research participant happens today,
and I want to have another chance to chat with André to review some aspects
of the open-ended interview process. I still have questions. What if there's
some unconscious bias coming through as I engage the research participant
with my questions? What if the way that I choose to word my questions or
comments offends the research
351
participant,
shuts him down, or puts him on the defensive? (The first research participant – all had agreed to be interviewed by the whole research team – was a
retired teacher who identified as a gay male. Research participants were not
told about the sexual orientations of the researchers prior to the interview.
However, the co-researchers provided each research participant with an opportunity
to ask us questions about our identities and the reasons we were involved
in this research during the interview warm up and in subsequent conversations.)
On the way to campus, my husband breaks the silence first. He interjects,
`You must be excited about doing the first interview today.' I respond, `Excited,
yes, but nervous too!' I knew that, in many ways, I still felt like an outsider.
This feeling was perhaps even stronger now. What I thought I understood about
LGBTQ experiences seemed only a surface understanding. This realization embarrassed
me. Yesterday, as we sat in André's office, going over details for today's
interview, André and Kris bantered back and forth, making comments about being
queer. I found myself suddenly being cautious. How should I respond? How might
they interpret my response? I'm still getting to know them. Finally, on campus,
I immediately hurry to André's office. It's too late! The research participant
is already there. A stupid thought runs through my head – He doesn't
look gay! I nonchalantly cover my wedding band with my other hand. Why did
I wear that today? I want to be accepted. I want to participate in this interview
openly. I quickly introduce myself, `Hi, I'm Candice.' André starts the interview.
I hang on every word spoken by the research participant. I want him to know
that I'm a sincere listener. He isn't cautiously choosing his words. He speaks
strongly, clearly, but with some sadness. I find myself feeling a range of
emotions. Then it's my turn to participate. I ask my first question, feeling
like the ground is about to break beneath me. The research participant smiles
and makes eye contact. He begins, `That's a good question.' I start to relax.
He is accepting me as a researcher. I am a part of this interview process.
He answers. I continue on, `I have another question.' For both Fiona and Candice,
engaging in this LGBTQ research project proved to be a process of negotiating
with self and others around issues of identity positions. As their involvement
grew, they engaged André and Kris more, raising questions and seeking resources
to enhance their LGBTQ knowledge and understanding. They also came to rely
on the research participants as resources to enhance their learning. Through
this LGBTQ immersion, their knowledge and comfort levels grew. They began
offering perspectives that provided the research team with insights to help
us all deal with the dynamics of the unfolding research process.
352
When
non-LGBTQ researchers name themselves and focus on who will take up, read
and interpret their LGBTQ research, they can provide an LGBTQ readership with
a sense of their challenges and concerns about engaging in such research.
Furthermore, they can connect, perhaps in a special way, with non-LGBTQ readers
for whom LGBTQ subjectivities and positionalities may be unfamiliar. Indeed,
as non-LGBTQ researchers share their own stories about finding ways into LGBTQ
research, some readers may find they share similar challenges and struggles.
Non- LGBTQ researchers can provide particular perspectives on heteronorma-
tivity and its impact on homes, schools and other institutions expected to
perpetuate a heterosexualizing culture. Fiona and Candice share the fol- lowing
insights about their learning as non-LGBTQ researchers engaged in an LGBTQ
research project. Fiona: I began this project having to explore my own resistance
and its roots. The stereotypes of LGBTQ persons that I had carried with me
grew meaningless when I could not match them to the real lives and work of
the people I encountered. In this research I engaged in a process filled with
uncertainties. I stumbled over the right words to use in interviews as I confronted
new terms and new ways – queer terms and queer ways of speaking about
people and culture. I started to resent the education system, the media and
everyone who had filled my head with stereotypes or left them unchallenged
with their silence. Being a heterosexual researcher in an LGBTQ research context
has made me not only more aware of different sexed, sexual and gendered persons,
but also more self-aware. Vignettes from the research participants' stories
swirl in my head – stories of living a `straight' life at school during
the week and a more authentic queer life on the weekends; stories of being
called faggot, dyke, or other less printable terms; stories of the daily fear
of losing a much valued, much loved teaching job. These stories make you want
to push boundaries, to question what has been unquestionable. They have brought
new recognition to my daily life, and they challenge my understanding of what
it means to live more fully in community. At the end of this research, I am
left not merely with some descriptive or interpretive task. I am left with
a political task, which is to take my new learning forward as I challenge
educational interest groups to enable LGBTQ persons to have their rightful
presence and place in education and culture. Candice: During the research
process, André encouraged us to share aspects of our reflective writing on
our roles as researchers in the Alberta study. In one session Kris volunteered
to read his first. His story recounted pains and struggles similar to what
many of the research participants had endured. As Kris read his last paragraph,
I felt what has become a familiar tension bubbling inside of me. I am angry – angry at myself for having, in the past,
353
laughed
when degrading gay jokes were told; angry at myself for having participated
in discussions that tried to intellectualize the cause(s) of homosexuality; angry at myself for buying into stereotypes that reduce being LGBTQ to certain
behaviours, tendencies and looks. However, I learned that this anger is ok.
It means that I'm thinking about LGBTQ differences now. It also means that
I'm trying to understand how heterosexual works in relation to non-heterosexual,
and what heterosexual takes for granted or fails to question. My experience
during this research project has deeply affected me as a person and researcher.
As I read through my journal, the depth of emotion I have felt strikes me.
I know I have grown as a researcher. Prior to this research experience, I
never worried about positionality. I assumed my place. This experience was
so different. It required that I question my assumptions and beliefs about
my location. It truly challenged me – an outsider researching outsiders.
And for that, I am forever grateful. Problematizing a researcher's LGBTQ spectral
positionality in conducting LGBTQ research Like non-LGBTQ researchers, LGBTQ
researchers live in a heteronorma- tive world, so they also have to learn
how to engage in LGBTQ research against the grain of heteronormativity and
what they have internalized. Despite coming from identity positions with inherent
and particular onto- logical and epistemological complexities along the LGBTQ
spectrum, LGBTQ researchers are not exempt from the impacts of a heterosexuali-
zing culture and a heteronormative society. In this light, considering both
LGBTQ and non-LGBTQ researchers' locations, they might ask: How might LGBTQ
and non-LGBTQ researchers work together against the grain of heteronormativity
to conduct LGBTQ research? What perspec- tives and qualities can both LGBTQ
and non-LGBTQ researchers bring to this research to enhance it? How might
researchers' subjectivities, positionalities and perspectives enable or inhibit
LGBTQ research possi- bilities? Does LGBTQ research have a tendency to become
insulated, isolated, or even disconnected if only LGBTQ researchers engage
in it? When researchers who conduct LGBTQ research are members of the spectral
community of queer Others (Grace, 2001), they have to consider how their identity
positions and politics impact how they conduct research and produce knowledge.
They also have to consider the intimate and real ways in which they may be
caught up in an LGBTQ research process in which they have vested interests.
Kris speaks to this latter issue. I came to this research with interests impacted
by my life experience as a gay, white, well-educated, middle-class male and
graduate student. I realize that
354
my
ability to participate in and write about LGBTQ research is informed by these
multiple subject positions, some of which privilege me, one of which subjugates
me. Indeed the outsider location that marked my life as a queer teacher very
much shapes my involvement in this research venture. As I listen to the research
participants' stories, I feel like a comrade-in-arms, like someone who has
found kindred spirits. What the research participants share so often resonates
with my own memories and experiences. In fact the sharing has resurfaced my
own messy narrative of life and work as a queer teacher. I became acutely
aware of this as I listened to their stories of the classroom and the closet.
I cannot escape revisiting my own feelings and experiences. When one research
participant detailed his experience with repeatedly cutting himself over an
extended period of time, I was deeply affected. I flashed back to a time when
the razor blade was at my own wrist, when I wondered how deep I would have
to make the cut to dull the pain inside me. My narrative, like those of the
research participants, is sometimes an uncomfortable story. Our stories share
common elements as cover stories, as secret stories; sometimes stories of
resistance surface. For example, one research participant related how he came
out to his principal and students after a homophobic incident he could no
longer ignore (or endure). He openly addressed the issue with colleagues and
concerned parents, and he now has a picture of his same-sex partner sitting
on his classroom desk. What value do I place on these narratives? On a personal
level, they are part of a process of reclaiming my own voice and person as
a queer teacher and researcher. On a cultural level, I hope they can provide
impetus and a basis to challenge and resist a dominant educational discourse
that is built upon heteronormative certainty and institutionalized silence
that erase queerness. LGBTQ researchers have a profound responsibility in
the cultural strug- gle for LGBTQ presence and place. Honeychurch (1996: 350)
asserts, `As a consequence of never-justifiable offenses of cruelty, we come
to knowledge obliged to consider our [queer] bodies with a deliberateness
not required of heterosexuals.' Thus, by virtue of their outsider positional-
ities and lived experiences, LGBTQ researchers are pivotal cultural workers
who can enhance research and advocacy efforts to transgress heteronormativity.
Whether they are best suited to conducting LGBTQ research, LGBTQ researchers
can certainly be cultural mediators for the many LGBTQ teachers who are caught
between their desire to be out and visible role models in schools and their
need to be invisible so they do not experience workplace backlash or lose
their jobs. When LGBTQ researchers are vocal and visible in the research process
and in their edu- cational and cultural work, they engage in a politics of
hope and revela- tion that expose LGBTQ voices and perspectives to others
for whom
355
knowing
LGBTQ identities and differences can begin a process of respecting and accommodating
them. As Kris speaks to his own personal resistance and learning as one of
the co-researchers in the Alberta study, we can see how he engages in a politics
of hope and revelation in which he links his research to his educational and
other cultural work for change. When I first became involved in the Alberta
study, I was quite sceptical and resistant to the suggestion of involving
non-LGBTQ co-researchers in this LGBTQ research project. This was our project.
This research involved our lives, not theirs. I recall thinking that non-LGBTQ
people have no place here. I needed this space. We LGBTQ teachers and researchers
needed this space. Due to this resistance, I initially challenged my non-LGBTQ
co- researchers. I wanted to know what their personal interests and investments
were. I was angry. I was tired of living and working in a heteronormative
world. Graduate school had become a process of understanding and reclaiming
my queer self. I was attempting to repair the damage that had been done to
my body, mind and spirit, so I came on strong. I wanted this research project
to be a uniquely LGBTQ space. I wanted my non-LGBTQ co-researchers to feel
uncomfortable. So what changed my perception? Stories. After sharing my own
stories, my co-researchers responded with theirs. They expressed their own
fears, desires and discomfort. I came to the realization that I wasn't really
trying to do LGBTQ research. I wanted to shrink the research space, not expand
it. Moreover, I was actively keeping the old binaries intact and, in turn,
denying my co-researchers and me an important learning opportunity. I was
being selfish. They shouldn't have to prove themselves to me. Furthermore,
I have come to believe and know that we need allies. We need non-LGBTQ researchers
doing queer research if we are truly doing this research in encompassing and
inclusive ways across sex, sexual and gender locations. As they write their
narratives, LGBTQ researchers not only have to con- sider their relationships
with non-LGBTQ researchers, but they also have to consider their relationships
with the non-LGBTQ readers who might take up, read, and interpret their research.
Non-LGBTQ readers may feel dislocated from LGBTQ research and doubt particular
findings. Honeychurch (1996: 353) concludes: `In the final analysis, reader
subjec- tivities will ultimately determine the construction of meaning and
attrib- ute value to any research. Because any study of homosexualities may
fall well outside personal experience, readers unable to believe outcomes
that they themselves have not experienced as truths [his italics] may remain
unconvinced.' Thus LGBTQ researchers ought to mediate the LGBTQ research process
by asking themselves certain questions: How do their researchers' subjectivities
and positionalities affect how they
356
communicate
outcomes to a non-LGBTQ audience? To what extent is the language they use
an issue? How might non-LGBTQ readers respond to the ways that LGBTQ researchers
(re)present LGBTQ worlds to them? How do such (re)presentations affect how
these readers see LGBTQ researchers as advocates? How do such (re)presentations
affect reader desire to become advocates themselves? Should LGBTQ researchers
translate for a non-LGBTQ world as they mediate LGBTQ research? Would this
belittle non-LGBTQ readers? Of course, even if they translate, LGBTQ researchers
must be aware that they themselves are variables in the translation process
because they view and review the world from standpoints, offering perspectives
and evaluating as they go (Corrigan, 1990). CONCLUDING PERSPECTIVE: LGBTQ
RESEARCH AS A REFLEXIVE ENGAGEMENT In the wake of the narrative turn in qualitative
research, Denzin and Lincoln (2000) recount that it has become commonplace
for researchers to research themselves. Moreover, increased attention to researcher
subjectiv- ity and positionality in using reflexivity as a methodological
tool in quali- tative research is one of the most significant trends in exploring
questions and issues of representation and legitimization (Pillow, 2003).
Researchers mediating LGBTQ research projects as a reflexive engagement with
theory, self, advocacy and culture find themselves part of this trend. As
par- ticipants in a dual engagement with research as culture and LGBTQ as
multi-cultures, these researchers try to gain deeper and richer understand-
ings of their LGBTQ research experiences and the risks they take to partici-
pate from different identity positions. Here, reflexivity becomes a political
and conscientizing process in which researchers grapple with their self- locations
(in terms of relationships of power) and their vested interests as they deal
with matters of context, disposition and ethics in making sense of their experiences
(Grace et al., 2004; Pillow, 2003). While reflexivity as a methodological
tool may not enable us to know fully, at least it helps us to know self, other
and culture in particular ways arbitrated by time and tides. This partial
rendering in autoethnographic research is important because it acknowledges
`the political need to represent and find meaning' (Pillow, 2003: 192). In
our LGBTQ research project, we strived to fulfil this need by variously using
what Pillow (2003: 181) describes as four general, interdependent and frequently
used reflexive strategies that work together in studying representation: `reflexivity
as recognition of self; reflexivity as recognition of other; reflexivity as
truth; [and] reflexivity as transcendence'. These strategies
357
helped
us situate each co-researcher's self-reflexive personal in terms of our perceived
insider or outsider status and our ensuing relationships with one another.
Hopefully, our reflexive LGBTQ research engagement exem- plifies what Pillow
(2003: 188) calls `uncomfortable reflexivity – a reflex- ivity that
seeks to know while at the same time situates this knowing as tenuous [and
disruptive]'. For us, it was through our collective discomfort and fragility
in terms of knowing and acting that we grew as researchers, advocates, risk-takers
and witnesses.
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NOTES
ON CONTRIBUTORS
ANDRÉ
P. GRACE is a Professor in the Department of Educational Policy Studies, University
of Alberta. FIONA CAVANAGH and CANDICE ENNIS- WILLIAMS are Master's students,
and KRISTOPHER WELLS is a doctoral student and Canada Scholar. Dr Grace and
his co-researchers study inclu- sive educational policy and practice, especially
as it focuses on mediating sex, sexual and gender differences in education
and culture. Dr Grace's national research, which is funded by the Social Sciences
and Humanities Research Council of Canada, is a study of welfare-and-work
issues for LGBTQ teachers working in Canadian schools.