Intersectionality of sexuality, ethnicity, and ‘(non-)native-speakerness’: a narrative inquiry of a gay Kurdish ESL teacher in Canada

Abstract

This study uses narrative inquiry as a research method and intersectionality as an analytical tool to explore how a ‘non-native’ gay ESL teacher of Kurdish ethnic background working in Canada (re-)constructs and negotiates his identities and how these identities shape (and are shaped by) his pedagogy and practice. Data was collected through written responses to prompts about the participant’s professional and social background, a one-hour follow-up interview, as well as text and voice messages. The results revealed that tensions and a feeling of self-doubt lie at the intersections of the participant’s identities. These feelings manifest in his teaching practice in the form of hesitation to raise queer and ethnic/racial issues and struggles in navigating heteronormative and racialized spaces. This study’s findings add further nuance and insights to the burgeoning literature on language teacher identity.

Keywords:

• Sexuality
• ethnicity
• intersectionality
• narrative inquiry
• ESL
• teacher identity

Acknowledgments

I am grateful to Ömer for sharing his stories with me. I would also like to thank Dr. Priti Sandhu, Ceren Kocaman, and the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on previous versions of this manuscript.

Disclosure statement

The author reports that there are no competing interests to declare.

Notes

1 I follow Holliday (2006) in suit in acknowledging the ideological construction of the terms ‘native’ and ‘non-native’ by placing them in inverted commas throughout this paper.

2 All names are pseudonyms.

3 Throughout the paper, I indicate the source of direct quotes with the tags [Nar], [Int], [Text], and [Voice] for written narratives, the interview, text messages, and voice messages respectively when the source of the quote is not clear from context.

4 Poststructuralists problematize the notion of ‘coming out’ since identity is in constant flux and construction. However, I use it throughout this paper since it was the participant’s wording. The phrase ‘come out’ is also significant here in depicting the ideological construction of the Kurdish ethnic identity in Turkey as something that needs to be hidden and revealed very carefully.