Some Spatial Politics of Queer-Feminist Research: Personal Reflections From the Field

Abstract

This article addresses methodological issues emerging from research conducted with Trans in the Center, an LGBT activist group in Tel Aviv, Israel. It addresses some complex issues related to the politics and ethics of applying queer and feminist methodology to qualitative research in a trans, queer, and feminist community space. The focus is on two issues: the researcher's positionality vis-à-vis the participants and selecting the appropriate methodology in relation to the characteristics of the group under study. Such issues demonstrate how queer and feminist principles are articulated and interwoven in geographical-spatial research in two different dimensions: in the research practice and methodology and in the practices and the spaces created by the activity of the researched group itself. I conclude with insights arising from the attempt to apply feminist and queer paradigms in both theory and research, and I call for their integration into geographical research.

Pregnant with possibility: The importance of visual data in (re)presenting queer women’s experiences of reproduction

“…In keeping with this assertion, my research contains more than a strategy for tapping into a more inclusive idea of family life-it is an attempt to create and prioritize devalued knowledge from the places and experiences that queer people consider meaningful to them/us, and also a challenge to "traditional" methods that limit our ways of seeing the social world in favor of an innovative scavenger or preservation methods that queer research. My research, thus, adds to a small but tenacious-and recently reinvigorated (Brim and Ghaziani, 2016)-tradition of innovating with and for queer people in research, building on, for instance, the use of desire and flirtation to critically engage with power in research relationships (Tweedy, 2016), the use of geographical-spatial research based on queer-feminist principles (Misgav, 2016), the use of queer theory to trouble the public/private binary in equality discourse (Dadas, 2016), the use of community-led storytelling (Valentine, 2016), and even the reclamation of quantitative methods and emergent technologies to promote queer indeterminacy (Haber, 2016), to name but a few recent examples of queer methods. Furthermore, my queer method emanates from my own community, as much research with LGBTQ+ individuals does, and so resonates with Dahl's (2016) observations about what she terms queer femme-inist research:…”

Queering the Curriculum: Why Music Therapy and Other Creative Arts Therapy Trainings Need Queer Theory

“…Queer theory "embraces the freedom to move beyond, between, or even away from, yet even to later return to, myriad identity categories" (Miller, 2015). As Misgav (2016) suggested "[ … ] queer geography is by no means a politics of identities but rather a non-identicality that involves the dismantling of identities and understanding their fluidity" (p. 728). This uncertainty and complexity in use of queer theory and relevant terminology might potentially be frustrating or even confusing to negotiate in what has been termed a post-normal world (Thomas, 2016); this was described by Misgav (2016) as "the complexity of the queer world and the fluidity and variety of gender and sexual identities characterizing it" (p. 730).…”

“…As Misgav (2016) suggested "[ … ] queer geography is by no means a politics of identities but rather a non-identicality that involves the dismantling of identities and understanding their fluidity" (p. 728). This uncertainty and complexity in use of queer theory and relevant terminology might potentially be frustrating or even confusing to negotiate in what has been termed a post-normal world (Thomas, 2016); this was described by Misgav (2016) as "the complexity of the queer world and the fluidity and variety of gender and sexual identities characterizing it" (p. 730). However, a strong dimension of the professional challenge and responsibility in creating a therapeutic approach within practice is the capacity to negotiate difficult, challenging, and confusing aspects of human experience (Lorenzo-Luaces & DeRubeis, 2018).…”

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