Queer Ethnography

"You Must Know What I Mean": Queer Ethnography and the Fallacy of Queer 'Insider' Status

by Craig Jennex

While conducting ethnographic research on queer music fan communities last summer, I was struck by how often research... more While conducting ethnographic research on queer music fan communities last summer, I was struck by how often research participants would refer to my queer identity as giving me an advantage in understanding their experiences. Many participants would even end their answers with “but obviously you must know what I mean.” Considering me a queer cultural “insider,” many participants assumed I enjoyed a heightened level of understanding into their personal fan experiences by virtue of my queer identity. These responses are particularly striking because they elide multiple queer realities into one monolithic queer experience and, thus, are indicative of a significant challenge in queer scholarship: how can researchers productively identify and archive experiences across a diverse range of subjectivities that fall under contemporary queer identity? In this paper, I draw on my previous ethnographic experience to explore the challenges of researching “the queer community” and the problematic notion of queer “insider” status. Armed with formative feminist methodological texts, I re-approach my research experience with the knowledge of feminist imperatives for productive anti-oppressive research, including the necessity of recognizing the fluidity of subjectivities, the paradoxical nature of subject formation and the potential for productive social justice oriented scholarship sparked by difference. Ultimately, I bridge my ethnographic experience with feminist methodological theories to argue for a queer ethnographic politics of partiality that embraces the nuances of identity, and divergent queer political desires. By foregrounding the complexity of contemporary queerness, I aim to show the dangers of unproblematically invoking notions of a coherent “queer community,” and queer “insider” status in ethnographic research projects.

The production of hospitable space: Commercial propositions and consumer co-creation in a bar operation

by Peter Lugosi

This is the accepted post-review version, published in Space and Culture 2009 Vol. 12 No. 4, pp. 396-411. DOI:10.1177/1206331209348083

This paper examines the processes through which a commercial bar is transformed into a hospitable space. Drawing on a... more This paper examines the processes through which a commercial bar is transformed into a hospitable space. Drawing on a study of a venue patronized by lesbian, gay, bisexual and transsexual/transgender consumers, it considers how social and commercial forms of hospitality are mobilized. The paper argues that hospitable space has an ideological, normative and situational dimension. More specifically, it suggests the bar’s operation is tied to a set of ideological conceptions, which become the potential basis of association and disassociation among consumers. It examines the forces and processes that shape who participates in the production and consumption of hospitality and how. Finally, it considers the situational, emergent nature of hospitality and the discontinuous production of hospitable space. Rather than focusing exclusively on host-guest or provider-customer relations, which dominates existing work on hospitality, the paper examines how consumers’ perceptions, actions and interactions shape the production of hospitality. By doing so the paper offers an alternative approach to understanding queer spaces, bar operation as well as hospitality.

Queer Consumption and Commercial Hospitality: Communitas, Myths and the Production of Liminoid Space

by Peter Lugosi

This is the accepted version. The final version was published as Lugosi, P., 2007. Queer consumption and commercial hospitality: communitas, myths and the production of liminoid space. International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, 27 (3/4), pp. 163-174. DOI: 10.1108/01443330710741093. Please consult the published version if citing.

Purpose – This paper develops a conceptual framework for understanding the relationship between sexual dissidence,... more Purpose – This paper develops a conceptual framework for understanding the relationship between sexual dissidence, gender transgression and commercial hospitality. It is argued that this can be used to examine how ideological assumptions about lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) consumers are mobilised in the production and consumption of hospitality spaces.

Approach – The paper synthesises three theoretical strands: first, Turner’s concepts of the liminoid and communitas; second, anthropological and socio-political conceptions of myth and myth-making; and third, Lefebvre’s spatial dialectic in the production of material, abstract and symbolic space. It is argued that, when considered together, these theoretical approaches help to understand the consumer experience, the ideological assumptions that underpin the experience, and the processes through which the experience is constructed.

Research implications – The application of this framework in empirical research can enhance our understanding of the role of commercial hospitality spaces in reproducing and challenging particular ideological assumptions about LGBT consumers. It can inform the operational strategies of commercial organisations. Furthermore, it can underpin a critical perspective on management, which encourages practitioners to develop a sense of social responsibility towards the communities of consumers they target.

Originality/value – The holistic nature of this approach helps to analyse the relationship between consumption and community ideologies at the micro level of personal interaction, the meso level of group and organisational norms, and the macro level of societal structures and agencies. Applying this framework to empirical research will also help to understand the nature of consumption and production within commercial hospitality. 

Consumer Participation In Commercial Hospitality

by Peter Lugosi

This is the accepted version. The final version was published as Lugosi, P., 2007. Consumer participation in commercial hospitality. International Journal of Culture Tourism and Hospitality Research, 1 (3), pp. 227-236. DOI: 10.1108/17506180710817756. Please consult the published version if citing.

Purpose of this paper
    This paper examines customers’ participation in the production of... more Purpose of this paper
    This paper examines customers’ participation in the production of commercial hospitality. Drawing on a study of queer consumers (i.e., lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) individuals), the paper considers the ways in which frequently circulated understandings, or myths, shaped consumers’ actions. The case study is used to highlight previously under examined dimensions of participation.

Design/methodology/approach
    The paper draws on an ethnographic study of bar culture. The principal method of data collection was participant observation, which involved working at one venue for 27 months, as well as social visits throughout a five year period. Participant observation was complemented by semi-structured interviews with 26 informants, 19 of whom were interviewed repeatedly during the research. 

Findings
    The paper suggests that three myths were evident in consumers’ behavior: commonality, mutual safety, and the opportunities for liberated, playful consumption. Focusing on two particular aspects of participation: performative display and frontline labor, the paper discusses the ways in which these myths influenced patrons’ actions.

Research implications
      The study suggests that an examination of the cultural dimensions of patronage provides crucial insights into consumer participation. The results will be relevant to social scientists and management academics seeking to understand the relationship between shared interest and identity, consumption, and the production of hospitable spaces.

Originality/value
      This study provides a new understanding of both the nature of and motivations for consumer participation. This challenges existing approaches, which have tended to focus narrowly on the managerial aspects of participation in the service sector.

Disgracing the Family?: The History/Non-History of Gay Italian Americans

by Michael Carosone

Queering Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services: The Subversion of Heteronormativity in Practice

by Brenda LeFrançois

published in: Children & Society

Keywords: adultism; classism; heteronormativity; intersectionality; mad studies; sanism; sexism; sexuality
more Keywords: adultism; classism; heteronormativity; intersectionality; mad studies; sanism; sexism; sexuality

This article explores the exercise of heterosexist-infused power relations within a Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) inpatient unit in the UK. The ways in which heterosexism may wield its power within CAMHS in conjunction with the support of sexism, adultism, classism and sanism are discussed. That is, this article contributes to the understanding and subverting of heteronormativity in practice. With this focus in mind, other forms of intersecting oppressions are detailed to highlight the role they play in both controlling young people and teaching them about the workings of patriarchy and social norms. The aim of the article is to contribute to the disruption of the heteronormativity inherent in the arrangements within CAMHS and the dominant normative practice that produces multiple subjectivities in this setting.

A Queer and Trans Fat Activist Timeline zine – digital version

by Charlotte Cooper

I published this zine in May 2011. It is a version of a timeline that was co-constructed at a workshop at NOLOSE 2010 and is now an archival object. The zine is an attempt to talk about how fat activist histories are constructed and dispersed. It is a way of working with multiple fat activisms over time and place.

Download a free digital version of the zine from my blog, or from here.

http://obesitytimebomb.blogspot.com/p/queer-and-trans-fat-activist-timeline.html

In 2010 I proposed and facilitated a workshop at the NOLOSE queer-dyke and trans fat activist gathering in Oakland,... more In 2010 I proposed and facilitated a workshop at the NOLOSE queer-dyke and trans fat activist gathering in Oakland, California, where a timeline was collectively produced. Part of the workshop proposal was that I would make a zine of the timeline which would be donated to archives and distributed in an attempt to create conversations about queer and trans fat activist histories. For those not in the know, a zine - rhymes with bean - is a homemade publication. The zine includes an explanation, some pictures and the text of the timeline itself. It's about a movement, ideas, experiences, a workshop, a conference, zines, histories, places, collective memory, community, critical reflection, cultural imperialism, dialogue, texts, feminism, archives, many things, and stuff I haven't considered too. It's also about fat people, queer people, and trans people. And it's about me and the things I do as a fat activist.

Becoming Sissy - A response to David McInnes

by Cristyn Davies

Includes D. McInnes chapter first.  Judith Butler in Conversation: Analysing the texts and talk of everyday life, B. Davies (ed.),  New York: Routledge, 2008, pp.117-133.

Tomboys and sissy girls: Exploring girls' power, agency and female relationships in childhood through the memories of women

by Cristyn Davies

Co-authored with Kerry Robinson. Australian Journal of Early Childhood, vol. 35, no.1, 2010, pp. 24-31.

Breaking the Silence: Infertility, Motherhood, and Queer Culture

by Michelle Walks