Expanding queer reflexivity: The closet as a guiding metaphor for reflexive practice

Abstract

In this article, I expand earlier work on queer reflexivity by positioning the ‘closet’ as a guiding metaphor for reflexive practice in field research. As such, I reconceptualize queer reflexivity as being reflexive about (1) negotiating the ‘closet’ by revealing and concealing multiple aspects of ourselves to others in the field, (2) the categories we use to identify ourselves and others, (3) the ways in which researchers construct (non)normative identities in the field and (4) aspects of ourselves that change in the field through interactions with others and the process of learning. In order to illustrate what field researchers can learn from this expanded conceptualization of queer reflexivity, I draw upon an auto-ethnographic tale about the implications of moving into and out of the closet in multiple ways over the course of the 2-year ethnography that I conducted for my dissertation research.

Keywords

Auto-ethnography fieldwork queer reflexivity queer theory the closet

The ‘closet’ is a metaphor that is most commonly meant to signify the experiences of lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans (LGBT) individuals who are presumed to be ‘heterosexual’ until they come ‘out’ of the closet by disclosing their non-normative sexual identities. Sometimes, these disclosures come with negative consequences, such as employment contracts being terminated (Adams, 2011). As such, many LGBT people struggle with decisions to either come ‘out’ of the closet at work or, alternatively, to attempt to keep their sexual identities hidden and thus closeted (Spradlin, 1998). However, in addition to reflecting the experiences of LGBT people, the metaphorical ‘closet’ shapes all social interactions. In the course of everyday life, individuals continually negotiate which of their selves to reveal to others and which of their selves to keep hidden. Sexual identity, religious affiliations, immigration status and cognitive disabilities are just some of the aspects of ourselves that can be closeted. Because the closet is an omnipresent feature of social interaction, it has important consequences in field research. In this article, I thus set out to position the closet as a guiding metaphor for reflexive practice in field research.

In its broadest sense, reflexive practice entails considering the ways in which researchers engage with their participants in field research, as well as the ways in which their multiple identities shape these interactions and their research (Hibbert et al., 2014). As such, reflexive researchers hold the assumption that identities do matter in fieldwork. For instance, scholarly identities mediate all aspects of research projects, including relationships with participants, data analysis procedures, findings and theoretical contributions (Cunliffe, 2011; Kuhn, 2014). Researchers with different scholarly identities can do fieldwork at the same research site, but yet observe and focus on very different phenomena. For instance, researchers who identify as critical are especially likely to see power dynamics in their fieldwork, given that critical scholars assume that power mediates all human interactions (Deetz, 2005; Thomas, 1993). Similarly, researchers who identify as feminist are more likely to notice gendered power dynamics that may be less visible to those with different scholarly identities (Ashcraft, 2005; Buch and Staller, 2007). The practice of researcher reflexivity entails, in part, explicitly addressing how one’s identity as a scholar leads the researcher to conduct their research in particular ways and to be more attune to certain phenomena rather than others.

Social identities, such as but not limited to gender, race, class and sexuality, also impact the research process because they relate to the ways in which people experience privilege and/or disadvantage in particular contexts. Qualitative researchers have engaged in many reflexive accounts of how social identities shape the power dynamics between them and their research participants, with researchers often being in a privileged social location vis-à-vis their participants (Carrington, 2008; Rooke, 2009; Sherman, 2002; Viladrich, 2005; Wagle and Cantaffa, 2008; Weiner-Levy, 2009). These reflexive accounts discuss the significance of these different social locations in order to help readers understand the relational and cultural contexts in which the research was produced.

To date, most reflexive accounts are written as though the identities of researchers are transparent and remain stable throughout the research process (e.g. Kennedy and Davis, 1996; Viladrich, 2005; Wagle and Cantaffa, 2008; Watson and Scranton, 2001). However, this stable ontology is inconsistent with theories according to which identities are continually (re)shaped through interactions with others and are often either undisclosed or invisible. Queer theory, for instance, is a body of thought that views identities as fluid, unstable and often closeted (Jagose, 1996). In an earlier paper, I developed the notion of queer reflexivity – that is, the practice of researcher reflexivity informed by queer theory – in order to encourage field researchers to reflect on the ways in which their social identities shift over the course of fieldwork; go beyond commonly referenced identity categories such as ‘woman’, ‘man’, ‘gay’ and ‘straight’; and can be undisclosed (McDonald, 2013). However, while practising reflexivity in these ways is consistent with queer theory, there are additional ways in which queer theory can inform the practice of researcher reflexivity.

In this article, I expand my earlier conceptualization of queer reflexivity by proposing the ‘closet’ as an all-encompassing metaphor that guides reflexive practice. As such, I conceptualize queer reflexivity as a practice that entails reflecting on how we shift into and out of the closet in multiple ways over the course of the research process through interactions with others, as well as the consequences of this shifting for the research process and relationships with participants. Put differently, queer reflexivity entails reflecting on what one reveals and/or conceals about oneself in the field. The practice of queer reflexivity thus directs researchers to consider the multiple ways in which they move into and out of the closet while they are in the field, as well as the implications of disclosing or concealing certain aspects of themselves to their research participants. Queer reflexivity also entails reflecting upon the ways in which researchers enact (non)normative identities in the field, as well as the consequences of these (non)normative identities.

In sum, this article contributes to earlier work on queer reflexivity by redefining this practice as being reflexive about (1) negotiating the ‘closet’ by revealing and concealing aspects of ourselves to others in the field, (2) the categories we use to identify ourselves and others, (3) the ways in which researchers construct (non)normative identities in the field and (4) aspects of ourselves that change in the field through the process of learning and interactions with others. In order to illustrate what field researchers can learn from this expanded conceptualization of queer reflexivity, I draw upon an auto-ethnographic tale about the multiple ways in which I moved into and out of the closet over the course of the 2-year ethnography that I conducted for my dissertation research.

Queer theory, (hetero)normativity and the closet

Queer theory refers to an interdisciplinary, heterogeneous body of thought with no clear boundaries (Jagose, 1996; Parker, 2001). Thus, any attempt to summarize queer theory is necessarily a political one, as it involves negotiating fuzzy boundaries and emphasizing some works and authors over others (Seidman, 1997). My account is no different and is intended to highlight aspects of queer theory that I believe can stimulate our thinking about researcher reflexivity, but not to establish any fixed boundaries between what is and is not part of queer theory.

One aspect of queer thought that is especially relevant to the practice of researcher reflexivity is its anticategorical approach to difference (McDonald, 2015b). The anticategorical approach to difference that characterizes much of queer thought is heavily rooted in Butler’s (2007) theory of gender performativity. Butler (2007) posits that although identity categories such as ‘woman’ and ‘man’ appear natural and fixed, they are fictional constructions because gender identities are contingent upon the ritualized (re)enactment of the normative practices that are said to constitute them. That is, gender identities are constituted through the (re)enactment of normative gendered acts. Gender is thus performative in that there is ‘no gender identity behind the expressions of gender’ (Butler, 2007: 34). To appear stable, gender identities must be continually (re)enacted through the performative acts that are viewed as constituting them. Butler (2007) uses drag to illustrate her theory of gender performativity, as the performance of drag entails (re)enacting the very practices that are said to be gendered and that constitute gender identities. Moreover, she claims that drag illustrates how gender identities can shift and be subverted. As such, queer theorists such as Butler (2007) seek to destabilize fixed notions of identity by exposing their fluidity, malleability and contingency upon performative acts.

Because queer theorists view categories of identity as so fluid and malleable, they seek to devoid them of any stable, coherent meaning (Jagose, 1996; Halberstam, 1998, 2012; Seidman, 1993, 1997; Sedgwick, 2008; Yep et al., 2003). For instance, although Sedgwick (2008) states that she is a woman and a feminist, she claims that this cannot be taken to mean that she shares the same experiences, struggles and beliefs as all others who also identify as women and feminists. As she states, ‘what brings me to this work can hardly be that I am a woman, or a feminist, but that I am this particular one’ (Sedgwick, 2008: 59). Similarly, Seidman (1997) argues that ‘there is no reason to believe that a middle-class southern heterosexual Methodist woman is going to share a common experience or even common gender interests with a northern working-class Jewish lesbian’ (p. 57). Both Sedgwick (2008) and Seidman (1997) highlight that categories of identity often gloss over and render invisible the experiences and identities of people who are purported to be represented by these very categories because of the incredible diversity that exists within them. As such, even people who are said to share a certain identity can experience this identity – as well as privilege and oppression – in vastly different ways.

The concept of (hetero)normativity is also central to queer theory. Normativity refers to the processes that construct, establish and (re)produce ‘a taken-for-granted and all-encompassing standard used to measure goodness, desirability, morality, rationality, superiority, and a host of other dominant cultural values’ (Yep, 2003: 18). Thus, normativity is a process that is infused with power relations and through which certain values and ways of being are cast as ‘normal’ and superior to others (Butler, 2004). One particular form of normativity that queer theorists have heavily emphasized is heteronormativity, which normalizes heterosexuality and casts other forms of sexuality – including but not limited to same-sex practices – as deviant and abnormal (Cohen, 2005; Elia, 2003). The pervasive ideology of heteronormativity thus ensures the perpetuation of heterosexuality’s dominance in contemporary Western democracies, just as the ideologies of whiteness and able-bodiedness normalize white and able-bodied identities.

An important consequence of (hetero)normativity is that society is structured according to a logic that privileges identities that are normalized. Disclosing non-normative identities, such as a gay identity, often comes with risks. One poignant example of such a risk is being constructed as mentally ill in medical and psychological discourse, as people who engage in same-sex practices were once perceived. As such, identities – especially those deemed non-normative – can be and are often invisible or ‘closeted’. This leads Sedgwick (2008) to theorize relations of difference through the metaphor of the closet in order to underscore that many identities are closeted until they are disclosed through action or discourse. The closet is thus a defining feature of the lines of people with non-normative identities, such as those who identify as gay. Indeed, those who identify as gay move into and out of the closet in everyday life since heterosexuality is presumed in heteronormative contexts until they come ‘out’ of the closet by disclosing a gay identity (Adams, 2011; Spradlin, 1998). As such, queer theory cautions that nothing about identity and difference can be taken-for-granted because many identities – especially those that are non-normative – remain in the closet and are not always disclosed.

Originally, queer theory emerged as an alternative to gay and lesbian politics in the 1980s, which celebrated the notion of ‘normality’ by suggesting that gays and lesbians are ‘just like’ their heterosexual counterparts. Queer theory sought to be an alternative that instead celebrated difference and eschewed claims to normality under the guise that claiming to be ‘just like’ heterosexuals is a form of cultural assimilation (De Lauretis, 1991; Seidman, 1997; Warner, 1999). As such, non-normative sexual identities have always been central to queer theory and politics. Some queer theorists continue to contend that to avoid losing the distinctness of queer theory and its history, queer theory should especially be concerned with critiquing the processes of heteronormativity that undermine non-normative sexual identities, with less attention to other forms of normativity (Alexander, 2003; Bersani, 1995). However, other queer theorists have suggested that to do so would go against the spirit of queer theory by creating boundaries about what it can and cannot critique. They also argue that queer theory should critique processes of normativity, broadly defined, because the consequences of heteronormativity are intertwined with the consequences of other normalizing regimes, such as but not limited to whiteness (Cohen, 2005; Ford, 2011; Johnson and Henderon, 2005; McDonald, 2015b). Queer theory can thus be read as a challenge to (hetero)normativity that enables us to interrogate values and assumptions that are often taken-for-granted, as well as to address topics that are commonly seen as taboo (Butler, 2004; Giffney, 2004; Halperin, 2003; Parker, 2001, 2002; Seidman, 1997; Warner, 1999).

Although management and organization scholars have been slow to adopt queer thought, queer theory’s presence in management and organization studies has been growing. For instance, Parker (2001) has drawn from the notion of gender performativity to queer the notion of ‘management’, suggesting that ‘doing management’ is a form of ‘doing drag’ and contingent upon the performative acts that are said to constitute a managerial identity. Similarly, Tyler and Cohen (2008) have shown how the performativity of management rests upon the performativity of gender in a queer analysis of The Office. Harding et al. (2011) have queered the notion of ‘leadership’ by exposing the latent meanings of sexuality that inform managers’ understandings of leadership and advocating the breakdown of the normative constraints that prevent an engagement with the topics of sex and sexuality in organizational life. Bowring (2004) has also drawn from queer theory to suggest that leadership research move beyond the multiple binaries that underpin this research, such as male/female and leader/follower. In addition, Brewis, Hampton and Linstead (1997) have drawn from queer theory to reimagine organizations as free of pervasive binaries such as masculinity/femininity and rationality/emotionality. More recently, Rumens (2013b) has proposed an agenda for queering research in construction by examining the (re)production of heteronormativity in construction industry policies and practices, as well as what happens to workers who enact (non)normative gender identities on the construction site. In another piece, I have also sought to queer occupational segregation scholarship, which entails examining how occupations are segregated not simply on the basis of stable identity categories but also on the basis of performative acts of difference (McDonald, 2015a).

Beyond informing analyses of organizational life, queer theory can also inform the ways in which management and organizational scholars engage in the practice of researcher reflexivity. In the next section of this article, I outline existing work on queer reflexivity and suggest how we can expand the notion of queer reflexivity by centring the metaphor of the ‘closet’ in reflexive practice.

Reconceptualizing and expanding queer reflexivity

Reflexivity and queer theory share many common commitments and premises (Adams and Jones, 2011). As mentioned above, queer theory seeks to disrupt taken-for-granted assumptions about the world by breaking down the normative constraints that prevent us from interrogating those assumptions (Butler, 2004; Warner, 1999). The practice of researcher reflexivity is similar in that it seeks to disrupt taken-for-granted assumptions about knowledge and research, most notably that the best research is ‘objective’ (Adams and Jones, 2011). Reflexive researchers suggest that ‘objectivity’ is unattainable in social research because the world does not exist outside of the researcher’s influence (Cunliffe, 2003). As such, researchers do not engage in reflexivity in order to make research more ‘objective’; rather, reflexivity consists in rendering the research process transparent in order for readers to consider the context in which the research was produced (Hardy et al., 2001). Reflexivity thus involves reflecting on how the decisions that a researcher makes influence the research process, such as which data collection and analysis techniques are used and the extent to which a researcher goes ‘native’ and becomes a participant. Moreover, reflexive practice entails exploring the relationships between participants and researchers and the impact of these relationships on the knowledge claims that researchers make (Cunliffe, 2003). As such, reflexive practice requires more than an acknowledgment of the meta-theoretical commitments driving the research study (Tomkins and Eatough, 2010). Reflexivity is thus an ongoing process occurring both in and out of the field, from the moment that the research is being conceptualized all the way through publication (Hibbert et al., 2014). In publications, reflexivity is most often manifested in the form of confessional tales through which researchers reflexively discuss the research process and their impact upon the research (Cunliffe, 2003; Van Maanen, 1988).

In management and organization studies, reflexivity is most common in critical and feminist research. Critical management scholars have been particularly adamant about engaging in reflexivity because they view research as being inevitably tied up in institutionalized relations of power. Exposing the politics of the production of research through reflexive accounts is thus crucial in order to contextualize the research within the power relations that critical management scholars critique (Alvesson and Ashcraft, 2009). Moreover, feminist scholars call upon researchers to engage in reflexivity in order to expose the ways in which the research process is shaped by power dynamics that are related to multiple forms of difference, such as gender and race (Calás and Smircich, 2009).

The notion of queer reflexivity – that is, the practice of reflexivity informed by queer theory – has been less developed by management and organization studies scholars, likely because queer approaches to organizational research are less established than critical and feminist approaches (Rumens, 2013a). As it has been developed to date, queer reflexivity has been defined as a ‘reflexive questioning of the categories we use to identify people’ and a recognition of ‘the shifting nature of researcher and participant identities over the course of the research process’ (McDonald, 2013: 127). As such, queer reflexivity debunks the idea that researchers and participants are similar to and different from each other on the basis of identity categories alone. For instance, because of the multiple ways in which ‘gay’ identity can be performed, researchers cannot presume a strong connection with their gay-identified participants or that identifying as gay will enable them to build stronger connections with gay-identified participants than straight-identified researchers. Moreover, existing work on queer reflexivity highlights that the identifications of both researchers and participants can shift over the course of the research process, so even if they are straight-identified when they first enter the field, this identification may have shifted by the time they leave the field. In addition, the practice of queer reflexivity entails reflecting on the politics of disclosing and/or hiding sexual identities from participants in research projects (McDonald, 2013).

In this article, I build upon earlier work on queer reflexivity by expanding the ways in which queer theory informs the practice of researcher reflexivity. For instance, earlier work on queer reflexivity did not position the metaphor of the closet as a defining, inescapable feature of social interaction that relates to the ways in which many aspects of oneself are often closeted – even one’s status as a researcher. Moreover, earlier work on queer reflexivity did not address how ongoing processes of scholarly learning can shift one’s identifications, nor the ways in which researchers negotiate these shifting identifications in the field. Such reflection is important, however, because as researchers’ identities change through these learning processes, they can be put into the closet as they negotiate how, when and if to reveal their shifting identities to others in the field. The expanded conceptualization of queer reflexivity that I put forth in this article thus encourages researchers to be reflexive about how the process of learning shapes themselves, their research and their interactions with participants.

In sum, I reconceptualize queer reflexivity in a broader way by suggesting that the practice of reflexivity entails being reflexive about (1) the ‘closet’, that is, the ways in which we reveal and conceal aspects of ourselves to others in the field; (2) the categories we use to identify ourselves and others; (3) the ways in which researchers construct and disclose multiple (non)normative identities in the field; and (4) aspects of ourselves that change in the field through interactions with others and the process of learning. My reconceptualization of queer reflexivity thus mobilizes three concepts that are central to queer theory – performativity, (hetero)normativity and the closet – and pushes researchers to reflect on the following questions:

Which aspects of myself do I reveal in the field? Why, and with what consequences for the research process?

Which aspects of myself do I keep closeted in the field? Why, and with what consequences for the research process?

Which aspects of myself do participants assume about me, and how do these assumptions shape the research process?

Which aspects of themselves do participants reveal in the field? How did that shape my interactions with them?

To what extent do I perform (hetero)normativity in the field? Why, and with what consequences for the research process?

To what extent do my participants perform (hetero)normativity? Why, and with what consequences for the research process?

How did I change while I was in the field (through interactions with others and the process of learning)? How did I reveal or conceal these new aspects of myself to participants, and with what consequences for the research process?

In the following sections of this article, I reflect on the above questions by drawing from my own experiences in the field when I was collecting data for my doctoral dissertation research. Throughout the research process, I negotiated if and how to reveal certain aspects of myself to others, especially those aspects of myself that changed over the course of the research process. As my auto-ethnographic tale shows, negotiating the aspects of ourselves that we reveal and conceal to participants is a defining feature of fieldwork, as is negotiating aspects of ourselves that participants presume about us. Ultimately, I argue that reflecting on the ways in which researchers move into and out of the closet over the course of the research process enables us to learn about tensions that arise in the field and the different ways through which these tensions can be managed.

Illustrating an expanded queer reflexivity: an auto-ethnographic tale

In order to concretely illustrate how scholars can practise the expanded version of queer reflexivity that I put forth in this article, I now engage in a queer reflexive account about ethnographic research that I conducted over a 2-year period. My engagement with queer reflexivity takes the form of an auto-ethnographic tale. Auto-ethnography is a method by which researchers analyse and critique their own personal experiences in order to generate novel theoretical claims about social phenomena (Adams et al., 2014; Denzin and Lincoln, 2005). Auto-ethnographic studies have been steadily gaining more traction over the past several years in interdisciplinary qualitative research circles, including within management and organization studies (Bell and King, 2010; Brummans, 2007, 2009; Humphreys, 2005; Kempster and Stewart, 2010; Learmonth and Humphreys, 2011). The increased traction that auto-ethnography has found among qualitative researchers is further demonstrated by the recent appearance of the first handbook of auto-ethnography (Holman Jones et al., 2013).

One of the biggest appeals of auto-ethnography is its ability to illuminate social phenomena and experiences that would be hard to capture through other qualitative or quantitative methods. Several research topics are particularly well suited to auto-ethnographic research: research about everyday mundane experiences, research that seeks to illustrate complex sense-making processes, research about taboo topics and research about the process of doing research (Adams et al., 2014). Auto-ethnography is especially amenable to research about the process of doing research because it affords researchers the opportunity to engage in reflexive accounts about their experiences in field research – accounts from which other researchers can learn and that can enrich theoretical discussions about qualitative methodology (Adelman and Frey, 2001; Essén and Värlander, 2013; Humphreys, 2005; Koning and Ooi, 2013). Auto-ethnography, the practice of reflexivity and the process of learning thus go hand in hand (Adams and Jones, 2011).

In this article, my auto-ethnographic study features reflections from my dissertation fieldwork, which took place at an organization whose mission is to increase the representation of women in the male-dominated field of computing and information technology (IT). This fieldwork spanned 2 years, from September 2010 to August 2012, and took place in multiple sites, including the organization’s headquarters and the venues where the organization held its 2011 and 2012 national conferences. These conferences brought together hundreds of people from both industry and academia who are actively working to increase the number of women working in computing and IT. Over the course of my fieldwork, I logged 140 hours of participant observation and conducted 20 formal interviews with participants. My goal in this ethnography was to study how a group of practitioners works towards increasing gender diversity in a male-dominated line of work, as well as the discursive tensions that can arise during this process. As such, my dissertation discussed and analysed many of the discursive strategies that my participants used as they went about achieving their goals. In addition, my dissertation exposed what I called a ‘paradox of inclusivity’ that my participants encountered when seeking to increase the representation of women in computing and IT, which led me to develop an alternative approach to occupational segregation that is informed by queer theory (see McDonald, 2015a).

In this article, I reflect on the process of conducting the fieldwork that served as the basis for my ethnography. As my reflections below reveal, during my time in the field, I continually negotiated the (hetero)normativity of everyday life, the parts of myself that I would conceal and reveal to participants and the multiple meanings of identity categories:

The name of the organization where I am doing my fieldwork has women in the title.

The goal of the organization is to get more women into computing and information technology.

Every single staff member of the organization is a woman when I first enter the field.

But yet, I am a ‘man’.

I look different from my participants. I stand out in staff meetings.

This is an identity that is presumed and that I cannot ‘closet’.

I thus wonder, from the moment I enter the field, if my participants will perceive me differently as a result.

Even though I probably share more in common with them than with many other men.

Being a ‘man’ becomes especially salient during one interview.

A woman participant states that men are ‘generally a little more level-headed and a little more logical.

They’re less emotional’.

Then she states that men ‘move past all of that emotional junk that females tend to carry’.

And then she asks me what I think about that because she wants to hear a man’s point of view.

How do I respond?

I feel the need to specify that my point of view is one of a particular man, not all men.

Moreover, I have never considered myself to be a ‘typical man’, whatever that is.

So which aspects of myself do I reveal? Which aspects of myself do I conceal?

I do state that ‘I don’t think I’m a typical man, if you can say that’.

My participant laughs.

I go on to state that ‘I think I am very emotional at times’.

But I do not say that I identify as gay.

I do not say that I am much more comfortable with communication styles deemed ‘feminine’.

I do not explicitly say that I disagree with those gender stereotypes.

I believe that keeping these aspects of myself closeted was a good move and enabled me to focus more on learning about my participant’s perspective.

I also thought that too many of those revelations could generate discomfort and awkwardness.

I thus negotiated the ‘closet’ by not revealing these aspects of myself that may generate discomfort.

One aspect of myself that is sometimes closeted is my researcher self.

When I arrive at an annual conference with hundreds of people to do fieldwork, very few people know that I am a researcher before I tell them.

I had to come out of the closet as a ‘researcher’ to every new person I talked to.

By making disclosures such as ‘I’m Jamie. I’m doing my dissertation research on this organization’.

A crucial, but yet repetitive and exhausting process.

Once I out myself as a researcher, note-taking reminds people that I am a researcher.

Some participants draw attention to the extensive notes I am taking on my computer at meetings.

This always feels awkward and makes me uncomfortable, and I do not always know how to respond.

Are they suggesting that I am taking too many notes, I often wondered?

One time, I was typing notes as a participant was giving confidential information about a company.

She then looked at me and said that ‘it is extremely important that this information does not circulate’.

I immediately nodded, as did the other people at the meeting.

But in this situation, I felt that the practice of taking notes outed me as a researcher in such a way that this participant was suspicious of me.

Some aspects of myself change over the research process and become closeted.

At the beginning of the research, I agreed with my participants that we must focus on increasing the number of women who work in computing and I.T.

And I disclosed this sincere belief to all participants to build connections with them.

But then I read more about postmodernism. About post-structuralism. About feminism. And about queer theory.

As I learned more about these scholarly ideas, I came to believe that we should not put so much emphasis upon numbers.

But I did not openly disclose to my participants how my scholarly identity shifted.

Nor did I openly question the numbers approach while I was in the field.

I thus ‘closeted’ this aspect of my scholarly identity, as it emerged over the course of research.

Over the course of my fieldwork, I went into and out of the closet in multiple ways.

As all researchers do.

Something crucial that I learned from this fieldwork experience is that researchers negotiate the closet in a way that is not unlike the closet that LGBT people negotiate.

And coming ‘out’ of this closet is an ongoing process that is never fully complete.

The above narrative highlights some of the ways in which researchers move into and out of the ‘closet’ over the course of fieldwork. Whereas the ‘closet’ is a metaphor that is most often associated with those who do not disclose non-normative sexualities (e.g. Adams, 2011), the narrative highlights many other aspects of ourselves that are or can be closeted, including but not limited to gay identity, feminist identity and researcher identity. Butler’s (2007) notion of gender performativity helps explain how these identities are closeted in the field. By viewing these identities as performative, it is the act of coming out and disclosing oneself as gay, a feminist or a researcher that constitutes the very identity that one is coming out as. Because these are forms of identity that are not always automatically presumed upon meeting research participants, these identities are closeted when researchers meet their participants, unless they are disclosed through the performative act of ‘coming out’. As researchers and participants interact with each other, they thus negotiate when, if and how to ‘come out’ by disclosing these closeted identities.

‘Coming out’ as LGBT often comes with risks in a heteronormative society in which gayness is viewed as deviant from dominant normative heterosexuality, which is generally assumed and goes unnoticed. Moreover, people who identify as LGBT can never fully be ‘out’ of the closet because they are put back in the closet every time that they meet a new person. Indeed, heterosexuality is presumed and taken-for-granted in many (heteronormative) societal contexts until one comes ‘out’ as LGBT through the performative acts that constitute this identity, whether these acts be rooted in action (e.g. passionately kissing someone of the same sex) or discourse (e.g. stating that ‘I am gay’) (Adams, 2011). My above narrative describes one of many instances in which I chose not to come ‘out’ as gay to my research participants. In fact, I never explicitly came ‘out’ as gay to any person in the field, despite being ‘out’ to virtually everyone who is close to me. Looking back, I think that it was the fear of not knowing whether it would generate discomfort or whether participants could see that as too much personal information. However, I did feel comfortable enough to disclose to participants that ‘I don’t think I’m a typical man’ and that ‘I think I am very emotional at times’. Those disclosures seemed ‘safer’ to me because they did not involve the use of identity categories. As such, these disclosures did not draw attention to sexuality in the same way that using the identifier ‘gay’ would. Thus, in the field, I found that it sometimes felt more comfortable to out aspects of myself that did not involve sexual categories. Of course, in a different context and with different participants, I may have felt more comfortable with the identifier ‘gay’. The ways in which we out certain aspects of ourselves to others in the field are thus heavily mediated by context and our relationships with participants.

Researchers must also negotiate how to come ‘out’ as researchers when they are in field settings. When they meet new participants, researchers most often are not assumed to be doing research, especially in contexts where researchers go native and are complete participants (Van Maanen, 1988). Yet, for ethical reasons, researchers are most often required to come ‘out’ as researchers to participants whom they meet in order for informed consent to be achieved. In my fieldwork, this was especially necessary when I was engaging in participant observation at national conferences with hundreds of delegates. Very few people knew me at these conferences, so I needed to come ‘out’ as a researcher again and again to every person I would meet by explaining what my project was about and, often, asking people for interviews. However, just like coming/being out as ‘gay’ can generate some discomfort, coming/being ‘out’ as a researcher can also make others feel uncomfortable and even suspicious. I especially felt this suspicion when participants would draw attention to my notetaking at meetings. As I noted in my narrative, on one occasion a participant felt suspicious enough about my notetaking that she reminded me that the conversation was confidential. As such, although I was ‘out’ as a researcher to this participant, there are certain acts – such as notetaking – that reminded my participants that I was a researcher and that occasionally generated some discomfort. This is not unlike gay identity, as even when ‘out’ to others, there are certain acts – such as kissing someone of the same sex in public – that remind others of this gay identity and that can generate discomfort in heteronormative settings. Thus, ‘outing’ oneself as a researcher in the field is an ongoing process that generates different reactions from participants in different contexts: sometimes positive and sometimes negative.

Just like gay identities and researcher identities, feminist identities are also closeted until revealed when someone is in the field. Although my fieldwork took place at an organization with the word women in the title and that seeks to advance women in computing and IT, the word ‘feminist’ is rare and almost taboo for many people at this organization – likely because the organization gets funding from sources that could be averse to that term or that would not support the organization if it came out as feminist. As such, rather than use the identifier ‘feminist’ when I first entered the field, I repeatedly expressed that I supported the organization’s goal to increase the numbers of women who work in computing and IT. This was a sincere belief that I held throughout much of my fieldwork. Openly espousing the organization’s mission was not something that I sought to closet; rather, I sought to be very clear about my support in order to build connections and trust with my research participants. In this sense, I believed to be demonstrating a commitment to collaborate with my research participants and help them achieve their goals, which is in line with the principles of feminist ethnography that I had been learning about as a doctoral student (Skeggs, 2001).

However, towards the end of my time in the field and as I learned more about multiple strands of feminist and queer theories, I became increasingly uneasy about the organization’s numbers-focused mission. Instead of focusing upon numbers of women in computing and IT, I began to believe that it would be more beneficial to conceptualize difference in broader ways, expose identities and experiences that are hidden by binary categories such as ‘men’ and ‘women’ and value all non-normative accomplishments of difference in computing and IT work. The more that I embraced this perspective, the more closeted that I became with my research participants, as I had already disclosed to them my support of the numbers approach. Because I was getting ready to leave the field and because of fears that I would be seen as antagonistic if I were to openly question the numbers approach in which my participants were heavily invested, I did not talk with participants about how my views had changed over the course of the research process. Looking back, I do believe that I would have been able to express these concerns without alienating my research participants and, in the process, engage in meaningful discussions with them. To do so would have also been consistent with some of the key principles of feminist ethnography, such as collaboration, reciprocity and honesty (Skeggs, 2001). However, at the time, I did not have the confidence that I would have needed to engage in those conversations – likely because I was still developing my ideas and my research was not yet complete. Today, I believe I would have that confidence.

So far in this discussion, I have reflected on multiple ways in which I was closeted in the field, as well as on decisions to either stay in or come out of the closet. However, there are certain aspects of ourselves that are taken-for-granted by others and that require much greater effort to closet. During my fieldwork, being a ‘man’ is one of those aspects of myself that was taken-for-granted and that shaped interactions with participants. Being a ‘man’ in the field was especially noticeable given that I was in field sites that were heavily female-dominated and that the purpose of the organization was to increase the representation of women in computing and IT work. As I mentioned in the above narrative, one moment where being a ‘man’ became particularly salient in my fieldwork was during an interview with a participant. During this interview, she made some general comments about men and then asked what I thought, from a man’s perspective. Crucially, I had never come out by explicitly identifying as a ‘man’ to her. Thus, my identity as a ‘man’ was presumed even without me coming out as such. Moreover, this participant saw me as different because she presumed that I would be able to speak on behalf of men and thus give her a man’s point of view. What I believe that this interaction illustrates is that both in the field and in everyday life, certain aspects of ourselves, such as sex, can be much more difficult to closet than others because they are taken-for-granted in everyday field interactions. Consequently, researchers and participants act towards each other on the basis of these taken-for-granted identities, but not always on the basis of closeted identities. Fieldwork thus requires a negotiation of what to out about ourselves in addition to what participants already presume. In addition, it can sometimes be necessary to qualify taken-for-granted identities that are automatically presumed about us. In my case, I found it necessary to say that while I do identify as a man, I am a particular type of man. Indeed, I do not believe that simply identifying as a man means that I can speak on behalf of men or that what I think represents a distinctly male point of view. However, I chose not to use identifiers related to sexual categories in light of dominant discourses of heteronormativity, as I found that these identifiers could potentially generate discomfort and awkwardness by explicitly drawing attention to sexuality.

There are several important takeaway points from this analysis that are relevant to the practice of researcher reflexivity and that are consistent with queer theory. First, fieldwork entails negotiating the closet: what researchers reveal about themselves, what they keep closeted and what is presumed and taken-for-granted about researchers. Second, because researchers change over the course of fieldwork through the process of learning and through interactions with others, they can become closeted in new ways as the research process goes on. Thus, outing oneself in multiple ways is a continuous process that is never fully complete. Third, and importantly, negotiating the closet in the field is a difficult process that creates tensions. Just as there are reasons why we keep certain aspects of ourselves closeted in everyday life, there are reasons why we closet certain aspects of ourselves in the field. Therefore, instead of striving for absolute honesty by outing all aspects ourselves in the field, I suggest that we should seek to reflect on why we keep certain aspects of ourselves closeted and the related implications – which I have striven to do ìn the analysis of my auto-ethnographic tale.

Implications for the practice of queer reflexivity

The metaphor of the ‘closet’ has been a central concept in this essay. Often, this metaphor has a bad connotation and is viewed as something that one does not want to be in. This is likely because the closet is most commonly associated with the lives of LGBT people, for whom outing one’s sexual identity and leaving the closet are often seen and experienced as empowering (Adams, 2011). However, I have complicated our understanding of the closet in this article by situating it as an all-encompassing metaphor: something that refers not only to sexual identity but to all identities and aspects of oneself that we conceal and reveal to others through interactions. Conceptualized in this way, the closet is an omnipresent, inescapable feature of social life, as well as one of the constitutive features of fieldwork.

Because the closet is a defining feature of fieldwork, I have argued that it can guide the practice of researcher reflexivity. That is, researcher reflexivity entails interrogating the ways in which researchers move into and out of the closet in the field, change during fieldwork and decisions to out certain aspects of oneself or keep them closeted. This approach to reflexivity is consistent with queer theory, as it pushes us to be reflexive about the ways in which identities are multiple, unstable, shifting and constituted through performative acts associated with coming out or remaining in the closet. Such an approach also underscores the importance of being reflexive about the categories that we use to identify ourselves and that others use to identify us, given that others always attribute categories to us and assume things about us, although we have not come ‘out’ as such. As such, this approach to reflexivity holds that some identities are more difficult to closet than others and that this is consequential for the research process and interactions with participants.

The approach to queer reflexivity that I have put forth in this article also requires researchers to be reflexive about how (hetero)normativity shapes decisions to keep certain aspects of ourselves closeted or to out these aspects of ourselves. Norms about what we should say and how we should act mediate all interactional contexts, and fieldwork is no exception. When we transgress these norms in some ways, we risk generating discomfort in a similar way to the discomfort that non-heterosexual expressions of sexuality can generate in heteronormative contexts. Thus, in fieldwork, researchers often strive to enact the normative standards in that particular context, which can make it difficult for researchers to ‘out’ aspects of themselves that are deemed non-normative. In my case, discourses of heteronormativity impacted my decision to not explicitly come out as ‘gay’ to my participants because in heteronormative contexts, such declarations sometimes generate discomfort – and, as a researcher, I did not want to generate discomfort. Consequently, I posit that the practice of queer reflexivity entails being reflexive about how discourses of (hetero)normativity shape the decisions that we make to stay in or come out of the closet in multiple ways during fieldwork. However, decisions to stay in and out of the closet are also mediated by other factors, such as emotions, anxieties, personal agendas and stigma (Kelly, 2004; Koning and Ooi, 2013). The practice of queer reflexivity is thus consistent with approaches to reflexivity that highlight the importance of being attentive to emotions and felt experiences in reflexive practice, including the awkwardness and discomfort that can result from (non)normative accomplishments of difference by researchers and/or participants (Down et al., 2006; Koning and Ooi, 2013).

The practice of queer reflexivity also has important implications for the process of learning both in and out of the field. First, the closet is a metaphor that mediates the process of learning because we learn about others as they come out. In fieldwork, for instance, participants and researchers learn about each other as they negotiate the closet and ‘come out’ in various ways, such as identifying as gay, as a feminist or as a researcher. Thus, I posit that the process of learning in social life – and in the field – is contingent upon acts of coming out in various ways. Second, learning is a process that greatly shapes the ways in which we see ourselves, others and the world. As such, our very identities and viewpoints are shaped by learning, which is an always ongoing dynamic process, both in and out of the field. Because our identities and viewpoints shift through the process of learning while we are in the field, these new aspects of ourselves can contradict aspects of ourselves that have already disclosed to participants. Thus, these shifting aspects of ourselves can become closeted. Queer reflexivity, therefore, pushes researchers to be reflexive about how their identities shift in the field through interactions with others and the process of learning, and how they negotiate the closet as their identities shift.

Importantly, I do not contend that the ‘closet’ is always problematic or that researchers should always strive to ‘come out’ of the closet by revealing every aspect of themselves to their participants. As mentioned previously, there are often good reasons why we decide to closet certain aspects of ourselves to others, both in and out of the field. Moreover, an approach to fieldwork and/or reflexivity that advocates outing everything about oneself would inevitably lead to narcissism (Tomkins and Eatough, 2010). As such, rather than suggest that we should always be coming out of the closet, I posit that researchers should be reflexive about the closet: what they closet about themselves, what they out about themselves, what is presumed and taken-for-granted about themselves, and the related implications. There is no escaping the closet – we experience it in all social interaction and we continually move into and out of it. By reflecting on the ways in which we negotiate the closet in field research, we can learn more about ourselves, learn more about others and learn more about the craft of research. It is in this spirit that I have proposed to expand queer reflexivity in a way that puts the metaphor of the closet at the centre of reflexive practice.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Editor Ann Cunliffe and the three anonymous reviewers for their constructive, insightful, and reflexive feedback on previous versions of this manuscript. Additionally, the author would also like to thank all of the participants in the dissertation study for the opportunity to conduct this research.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: The author’s dissertation research was partially funded through a doctoral fellowship from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

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