Entangling past, present, and future to examine queerness and white privilege in academia

Abstract

Lesbians have limited visibility or representation in educational research, and there has been even less consideration of the ways that lesbians’ experiences are racialized. Using a methodological approach that entwines Karen Barad’s concept of queer temporalities with Kimberlé Crenshaw’s discussion of single-axis intersectionality, this paper uses critical autoethnography to offer narrative examinations of the author’s queerness as constantly enmeshed with her Whiteness. The author considers the degrees to which being situated in the socio-politically conservative U.S. South have influenced her experiences as a queer lesbian academic, even as White privilege has, intentionally and unintentionally, shaped her scholarship.

Keywords:

• white privilege
• race
• intersectionality
• autoethnography
• narratives
• education

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Stephanie Anne Shelton

Stephanie Anne Shelton is Assistant Professor of Qualitative Research in the College of Education at The University of Alabama, and an affiliate faculty member in the Department of Gender and Race Studies. Her scholarship has been published in journals such as the International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, Qualitative Inquiry, Sex Education, and Teaching and Teacher Education.