Navigating Methodological Considerations through Queer and Trans* Epistemologies

• In Event: Counter-Storytelling for Queer & Trans Epistemic Justice

Abstract

Objectives or purposes: This paper explores subjectivity and positionality as an inherent component of the research design process alongside the methodological inquiries of a doctoral student in the process of shaping her thesis. Specifically, it explores her journey to the arrival of her research questions and interests, followed by a naming of the uncertainties, desires and questions that relate to shaping her methodological approach, concluding with an exploration of the invitation that queer and trans* epistemologies and methods offer to shape the potential pathways her research can take.

Perspective(s) or theoretical framework: Guided by Black feminist practices of narrative inquiry and autoethnography, this paper works through the lived experience of the author to affirm that research is informed by one's subjectivity and positionality. From that point of departure, this paper then explores the offerings presented by autoethnography and participatory action research as methodologies. Ultimately, these methodological inquiries are placed into conversation with queer and trans* epistemologies that present new dynamics to the versatility of the personal as political.

Methods, techniques, or modes of inquiry: This is an autoethnographic piece that wrestles with Black feminist ideas of care and love, in conjunction with queer and trans* epistemological framings of the “self”. The author draws from her own experience as well as authors such as Audre Lorde, Joy James, bell hooks, Kim Q. Hall, Stacy Holman Jones and Tony E. Adams, Kath Browne and Catherine J. Nash, and many others within the fields of Black feminist thought, queer studies and trans studies.

Data sources, evidence, objects, or materials: This paper weaves autobiographical narrative from the author’s lived experience with secondary text across three distinct but overlapping disciplines: Black feminism, queer theory and trans theory.

Results and/or substantiated conclusions or warrants for arguments/point of view: This paper demonstrates the importance and process of intentional inquiry in the research design process. It invites a deep engagement with subject positionality as an inherently enmeshed component of qualitative research, shaping our desires for our work, our perspective on the world and the interpretations of findings that we deem salient. This paper also explores the methodological considerations presented by participatory action research and autoethnography, through Black feminist, queer and trans theoretical frameworks.

Scientific or scholarly significance of the study or work: Ultimately, this paper navigates the offerings presented by queer and trans* epistemologies and methods, particularly in relationship with Black feminist thought, to shape research that seeks to map radical community practices of care and love. Sitting with the literature that invites both the distinctions and areas of overlap across critical fields of thought, to shape research that contributes to informal spaces of education and fundamentally practices of resistance in a pursuit for liberatory worlds.

Author

• Susanne Nyaga, University of Toronto - OISE