Queer Ethnographies/Autoethnographies

Queer ethnographies and autoethnographies (also referred to as queer auto/ethnographies) link the methodological and representational practices of ethnography and autoethnography with queer theory’s critical framework for understanding difference, minority discourses, and identities. Queer auto/ethnographies offer researchers a strategy for[Page 910] creating just and humane scholarship that seeks to change people’s lives and worlds.

Queer is a term with many definitions and uses. Queer can describe same-sex attraction or be used synonymously with gay or lesbian. Queer could describe any act or desire that goes against traditional, heterosexual—“heteronormative”—expectations of intimate relationships such as marriage, monogamy, and/or biological reproduction. There are practices of “queering” that involve acts that disrupt everyday, taken-for-granted routines with the intent to call attention to harmful norms and expectations in social life. There are ...