Bringing our communities to the research table: the liberatory potential of collaborative methodological practices alongside LGBTQ participants

Abstract

Research on and about queer people and topics in higher education continues to evolve, expand, and push boundaries on identity, policy, and programming, increasingly informed by our narratives and experiences. Thus far, this work has done little to dismantle the imposed binary of researcher and subject(s), relegating queer research and practice as something that is done ‘on,’ ‘to,’ or ‘for’ queer people, rather than ‘with’ them. Collaborative ethnographic methodologies and communities of practice (CoP) provide alternative modes of scholarship and practice that build queer people’s agency through active involvement in research and social change processes. Situated in two of our own examples, our purpose is to explore big questions and raise even more. This article calls for a further queering of LGBTQ research in higher education by utilizing collaborative methodologies such as CoP and collaborative ethnography to improve the strategies, practices, and knowledge of campus queer communities and imagining new democratic and liberatory realities together.

Keywords:

• LGBTQ
• higher education
• collaborative methodologies

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. The asterisk in the word trans* is used to denote the continued evolution and expansion of identities, expressions, and embodiments of transgender individuals (Tompkins 2014). We use this term throughout the article to signal a capacious understanding of transgender individuals and communities.

2. Ze and hir are pronouns used by some trans* people, including Z. Ze is a singular pronoun, serving the same role as she or he, and hir is a possessive pronoun, serving the same role as his or her.