Engaged Queer Scholarship: Probing a New Paradigm of Knowledge Creation

Abstract

<jats:p>This article features a reflexive iteration of engaged scholarship regarding the Queer Liberation Theory Project, a community-based research study with the social justice group Queer Ontario, which involves academics, activists, and artists, a number of whom are cross affiliated. We explore the tensions and challenges involved in developing and creating knowledge via an engaged scholarship process that must respect the historical philosophical perspectives of a social movement as well as today’s academic theories. This article addresses the challenges of developing new knowledge (a theory) that counters a powerful, neoliberal, mainstream segment of today’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) movements, with implications for society at large. The layered issues associated with engaged scholarship are disentangled, including vulnerability to neoliberalism, navigating competing perspectives, and how academics/activists/artists both understand and engage in knowledge creation.</jats:p>

Becoming an LGBTQ+ storyteller: Collecting and using data on gender, sex, and sexual orientation

“…This framework may be particularly useful for work with LGBTQ+ communities of color, particularly Black LGBTQ+ communities. The Public Health Critical Race Praxis also provides useful guideposts for researchers to avoid pitfalls which could lead to acts of epistemological violence and contribute to reinforcing racist hierarchies through research; evaluators are also likely to find these reflection points useful Queer Liberation Theory (McKenzie, 2020;Riemer & Brown, 2019;Mulé et al, 2013) Grounded in a social justice framework, this body of scholarship examines the systemic oppression of LGBTQ+ peoples, offering intellectual resistance to assimilative, divisive, conservative, and capitalist regimes.…”