Bridging Performances of Auto/ethnography and Queer Bodies of Color to Advocacy and Civic Engagement

Vulnerable advantages: Re-searching my self while navigating queer identity, research ethics, and emotional labour

“…Boylorn and Orbe (2014, p. 19) note that a critical autoethnographic method has three aspirations: “to understand the lived experience of real people in context, to examine social conditions and uncover oppressive power arrangements, and to fuse theory and action to challenge processes of domination.” Situated in the transgressive cracks between memory and theory, I centre my lived experiences as a queer scholar-activist in this “blurred genre … refusing categorization” (Holman Jones, 2005, p. 765). Autoethnographic writing, as process and product, is a Borderland itself, and can be a political enactment of working within and through one's vulnerabilities to deepen a decolonial, social justice, queer, and feminist agenda (Chandrashekar, 2018; Chawla & Atay, 2018; Chawla & Rodriguez, 2008; Gutierrez-Perez, 2017; LeMaster et al, 2019; Padilla, 2019).…”

“…To acknowledge the privilege and entitlement of being the author, queer (auto)ethnographers must write reflexively and critically about identities, histories, and cultures. We owe it to our various interconnected communities (Gutierrez-Perez, 2017, p. 152).…”

“…I came to realize that guidelines fill epistemic gaps that enable bad practices to go unchecked, such as transphobia, sexual orientation change efforts, misinformation, or wilful ignorance that results in people like myself being excluded in research. Acknowledging our vulnerabilities as diverse, intersectional, queer communities did not have to erase our strength, resilience, and fortitude in surviving and thriving in such contexts of minority stress (Gutierrez-Perez, 2017; Lorde, 1984).…”

“…While submitting the final manuscript in 2023, Uganda had just passed its Anti-Homosexuality Bill, as a wave of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation spreads across parts of Africa, including Kenya and Tanzania; and further afield, the Indian Supreme Court is aggressively debating whether to legalize same-sex marriage. Indeed, as Gutierrez-Perez (2017, p. 151) observes, “like all other contexts in which we exist, auto/ethnographic performances of queer bodies of color are dangerous work because our histories with master narratives grapple with the politics of colonialism, violence, and genocide.” Having the power to write myself into existence is therefore a privilege I do not take lightly.…”

“…Situated in the transgressive cracks between memory and theory, I centre my lived experiences as a queer scholar-activist in this "blurred genre … refusing categorization" (Holman Jones, 2005, p. 765). Autoethnographic writing, as process and product, is a Borderland itself, and can be a political enactment of working within and through one's vulnerabilities to deepen a decolonial, social justice, queer, and feminist agenda (Chandrashekar, 2018;Chawla & Atay, 2018;Chawla & Rodriguez, 2008;Gutierrez-Perez, 2017;LeMaster et al, 2019;Padilla, 2019).…”