Community-Based Queer Research, Methodological Flexibility, and Mixed-Methods Inquiry

• In Event: Queering Mixed Methods Research for Social Advocacy

Abstract

Objectives
The purpose of this paper is to, through the narratives of community-based queer research and the perspective of community based participatory research, highlight the importance of methodological flexibility. One important aspect of community-based queer research is that queer communities often find a need to speak to policymakers, who may search for reasons to reject their policy needs and the research supporting them. As a result, methodological flexibility and mixed methods work become important.
Theoretical Framework
This paper is grounded in the theoretical framework of community based participatory research, and critical theory. Queer communities have enormous capital for understanding the problems they face, finding workable solutions, and collecting data on those problems and solutions. One issue these communities face is opposition from policymakers, either due to resistance to queer-positive policy or the silencing of queer and otherwise marginalized voices. As a result, these communities often find the need for flexibility in their methodological approaches, and the incorporation of mixed-methods is one way to address these needs.
Methods
For the purposes of this paper, I present several cases of community-based queer research from Mississippi, highlighting the challenges they faced, the way in which those challenges required methodological flexibility, and how those challenges were ultimately met by mixed-methods inquiry.
Data Sources
The data sources are several case studies of community-based queer research. These include research products, narratives, and artifacts from the research process.
Results
The first important finding is that single-method research was typically rebuffed by policymakers. In one instance, a community group approached their city council with qualitative findings they had collected to support the need for a city diversity resolution. Council members were unwilling to accept narratives as valid data. In another instance, a student group worked with researchers to collect quantitative data to support their request for queer-positive campus policy. They found that administrators dismissed the findings as ‘just numbers’ without ‘anything behind them’. In both instances, the policymakers seemed to be asking for another type of data collection.
The second important finding is that methodological flexibility is required for those doing community-based queer research. In both instances, the researchers working with community groups selected the data collection method because it was their training and expertise. Neither continued their work on the research once the data collection strategy changed.
Finally, mixed-methods research can produce more favorable results for queer communities. On presenting campus-leaders with a mixed-inquiry, initial resistance to ‘just stories’ and ‘nothing behind the numbers’ were overcome, and policy conversations began. These conversations are ongoing, but there are no longer questions about the need for policy change.
Significance
Too often, researchers are stuck in one research paradigm, without recognizing the need communities have for flexibility and mixed research. This rigidity can result in worsened outcomes for queer communities. Various methodologies can provide answers to research questions, but the real question is which methodologies can combine to produce improved outcomes for queer people and create space for queer-positive policy shifts.

Author

• Kamden Strunk, Auburn University