Apostle of Visibility: An Auto-Ethnographic Exploration of Gay Triumph and Tragedy

• In Event: 34.084 - Queering Access, Inclusion, and Equity in Higher Education

Abstract

Using autoethnographic methods, I explore the experiences of gay men on a Southern campus with the intent to make manifest gay “triumphs” in a context of sexual/identity oppression. In addition, this study explores the epistemological and ontological ramifications of unsettling conventional, post-positivist qualitative methods to capture the nuanced experiences of marginalized students. Sociological protagonists constituted through impressionistic research vignettes demonstrated crystallization in practice and establish a model for capturing the nuances of campus climate’s impact on gay identity construction.

Author

• Benjamin Tyler Arnberg, Auburn University