Queering the Consent Process: (Un)Masking Participant Identity in Risky LGBTQ+ Teacher Ally Work

• In Event: Interrogating (Un)Masking in Qualitative Inquiry at the Intersections of Critical Geographies and Spatial Justice

Abstract

Researcher-based efforts to protect participant identity are common in qualitative research. Most Institutional Review Boards expect statements regarding researchers’ plans to protect participants’ privacy, often including assigning participant pseudonyms. These confidentiality practices are ubiquitous in qualitative scholarship, yet relatively unexamined. Drawing on Barad’s (2015) discussions of queer intra-action, this paper explores the implications of a U.S. Southeast-based K-12 educator’s efforts to participate in a research project as an LGBTQ+ teacher ally, when such discussions put her and those she discussed at substantial personal and professional risk. Using data from a year-long study, including focus groups and interviews, but based primarily on two individual interviews during which the participant explicitly examined, and sometimes rejected, the researcher’s efforts at achieving participant confidentiality, this paper centers the participant, her perspectives, and her needs--as a participant--as we explore the importance of an overt and iterative participant confidentiality process in qualitative research.

Authors

• Stephanie Anne Shelton, University of Alabama

• Tamara Brooks, The American School of Belo Horizonte