Methods and Theory in the Sociology of Sexualities

Session Submission Type: Paper Session (90 minute)

Description

These papers speak to the challenges of sexuality research in terms of methodology, positionality, operationalization, and conceptualization. Papers address the difficulties of research in the subfield itself; the absence of sexual behavior in a subfield that is ostensibly about sex; how we might conceptualize folk categories that shape the behavior of research participants; the interrelationships among sexual behavior, identity, and desire in LGBTQ+ and heterosexual lives; and the implications of the methods we use to study sex and sexuality when studying migration and immigration. This panel thus speaks to classic issues in the field of sociology: the interplay of methods and theory; the boundaries between and among subfields; and the implications of the choices that we make as researchers for the limits on, and possibilities for, our ability to understand the sexual social world.

Sub Unit

• Sociology of Sexualities Section / Sociology of Sexualities Section Open Call Paper Session

Presider

• Greggor Mattson, Oberlin College & Conservatory

Individual Presentations

• “Creepy Cruisers: Towards a sociology of sexual creepiness” - Kendall Ota, University of California, Los Angeles

• Rethinking Archiving and Oral History in Queer Migration Research - Ahmed Hamila, University of Montreal

• The Challenges of Doing Dirty Research - Eran Shor, McGill University, Dpt. of Sociology

• The Sex Deficit: Mapping the Absence of Sexual Practice in Sexuality Research - Yeela Lahav-Raz, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev; Dana Kaplan, Department of Sociology, Political Science and Communication, The Open University.

• The Ordinary Misalignment of Behavior & Identity: Towards a Theory of Contextual Queerness - Dorothy Rau, University of Texas-Austin

Session Organizers

• Desmond Francis Goss, George Washington University

• Zoë Chaetana Miller-Vedam