Queer Digital Forensics as Methodology for Documenting Queer Culture at Higher Education Institutions

Abstract

This article proposes queer digital forensics as a method for exploring the discursive manifestations of queerness across multiple institutes of higher education (IHEs). Informed by historical frameworks of queerness within IHEs and contemporary understandings of queer archival theory, the article identifies queer digital forensics as an innovative tool to highlight both the resilience and absence of queerness within geographically and ideologically diverse IHEs. Through analysis of four IHEs, the article finds that the imagined presence of queerness on a campus often contradicts queer visibility within digital settings while offering new ways to enumerate queer visibility, even within fiercely anti-queer IHEs.