Reckoning with Statistics’ Eugenicist Past and the Queering of Quantitative Methods

• In Event: 50462 - Section on Science, Knowledge, and Technology Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 9: Colonial Legacies

Abstract

Queer theory, like critical race theory, is a critical and anti-oppressive theory with transformative aims. It often dovetails with intersectionality in its application. Across the health and social sciences, there is substantial interest in integrating queer theory into our research methods. Thus far, this has primarily been accomplished in qualitative research. Integrating queer theory into quantitative methods, on the other hand, remains something of a puzzle. What would it mean to queer quantitative methods? Why should such a project be undertaken? How might it be accomplished?

Until now, queer theory applications in quantitative research have primarily focused either on redesigning survey measures to expand the diversity of response options, or on making queer populations the subjects of quantitative research. While promising, this falls short of the ultimate goal of queering quantitative methods. In this chapter, we identify the hallmarks of queer theory, generalize “lessons learned” from queer theory’s applications in qualitative research, and then imagine ways to apply the queering of methods to quantitative approaches.

By their nature, queer methods are designed to investigate how queer lives and queer resistance take shape in the midst of the normative. Beyond gender- and sexuality-related topics and the queer population, queer methods focus on “messy” identity categories, shift classifications, and challenge narratives of normativity, and thus, can be applied in quantitative research to capture social processes with more accuracy. After arriving at a set of principles for what queer quantitative methods would accomplish and how they would work, we explore the use of intersectional MAIHDA as an example of a tool that can support the queering of quantitative methods.

Authors

• W. Jamie Yang, University of Oregon

• Clare Rosenfeld Evans, University of Oregon