Alison Rooke

Queer in the Field: On Emotions, Temporality, and Performativity in Ethnography

This article is a reflection on a year of ethnographic fieldwork conducted in and around a lesbian and gay community center in London. The research was concerned with the ways in which working class lesbian and bisexual women experience the meanings of their sexual identities on an everyday basis. I conducted participant observation in a variety of settings. Activities I took part in included volunteering at the center and running sexualities discussion groups, and photographic workshops with lesbian and bisexual women. In this article I explore the epistemological, ontological, and ethical dimensions of ethnographic research. I argue here that queer ethnography is not merely ethnography that has focus on researching queer lives, it is also a matter of taking queer theory seriously in order to question the conventions of ethnographic research, specifically the stability and coherence of the ethnographic self and performativity of the ethnographic self in writing and doing research. To queer ethnography then, is to bend the established orientation of ethnography in its method, ethics, and reflexive philosophical principles.

Learning global citizenship? Exploring connections between the local and the global

This article identifies historical connections between adult learning, popular education and the emergence of the public sphere in Europe, exploring potential implications for adult learning and community development, drawing upon research evaluating programmes to promote community-based learning for active citizenship in UK. The research findings illustrate the relevance of the global and indeed the regional levels, when addressing concerns with active citizenship, locally. The article then moves on to examine experiences of global citizen advocacy coalitions, experiences from which participants have been drawing differing lessons about global citizenship. Finally, the conclusions raise questions about the scope for adult learning and community development in the current policy context, shaped so significantly by neo-liberal agendas. Social movements in general and popular education movements, more specifically, would seem to have vital roles to play, facilitating adult learning for critical democratic engagement with the structures of governance, locally and beyond, internationally.

Que(e)rying Methodology: Lessons and Dilemmas from Lesbian Lives: An Introduction

Questions of ethics, accountability, and representation have long animated the social sciences. Feminist writing has played a key role in highlighting the significance of power relations at all points in the research process. The personal identities of the researcher and researched are understood to affect the knowledge produced. Thus, the situatedness of the researcher and participants influence how they interact, the empirical data produced, and the epistemological terrain within which it is interpreted (Oakley, 1981; Ramazanoglu and Holland, 2002). The identities of the researcher and respondents are understood as plural and addressed in relation to gender, race, sexuality, class, age, and other axes of belonging. It is acknowledged that differences in identity can also constitute differences in power (Letherby, 2003). In short, the research process is not an objective, clean business but rather is riven with power relations and is often a messy, complex interplay of subjectivities, identities, and emotions (Fonow and Cook, 1991; Maynard and Purvis, 1994; Stanley, 1997). Rather than viewing these complexities as a shortcoming of the research process, using reflexivity and other analytical tools allows the researcher to reflect upon the dilemmas and challenges of research. This process helps to illuminate wider social relations and modes of intersubjectivity. Social and cultural research on lesbian lives can present particular challenges. Work on sexuality and intimate life requires navigating sensitive issues. Writing about minority groups brings certain expectations and

Learning the Sexual City

This chapter is based on ethnographic research which took place in and around a lesbian and gay community centre located in a suburb of London. The chapter will discuss the ways in which working-class lesbian and bisexual women experience the meaning of their sexuality and their sexual identities on an everyday basis within the social and spatial context of the city. Drawing on the theory of performativity (Butler J, Bodies that matter: on the discursive limits of ‘sex. Routledge, London, 1993, Gender trouble: feminism and the subversion of identity. Routledge, New York, 1999) which refers to the cultural workings of heterosexual presumption, the discussion addresses heteronormativity as a dimension of the lived experience that is navigated and sometimes challenged in everyday life. Images produced by participants, and the talk about them, are viewed as what Lefebvre (Critique of everyday life. Verso, London, 1991a) describes as representations of space and spaces of representation.

Contradiction, Collaboration and Criticality: Researching Empowerment and Citizenship in Community-Based Arts

This chapter examines the work of two London-based community arts organisations: London Bubble Theatre and the Stream Arts which were selected as The Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) Take Part case studies.1 The work of these organisations demonstrates how arts organisations and arts practitioners are well placed to explore the themes of social action and community empowerment. Through participative and socially engaged practice, they create highly relevant and aesthetically sophisticated local projects which stimulate people to take an active and critical role in civic society. Both of these research studies were presented to the Taking Part conference/’un-conference’, contributing to discussions with colleagues from arts organisations, Third Sector organisations and academics from the United Kingdom and beyond, internationally, as the previous chapter has already explained.