Call for Papers for a Special Issue on Queer Approaches to Mixed Methods Research

Abstract

Keywords

queer mixed methods queer theory mixed methods research queering methods queering methodology

Special issues about mixed methods research demonstrate its “development, recognition, and professionalization” (Molina-Azorin & Guetterman, 2023, p. 234). In a recent editorial, co-editors-in-chief José Molina-Azorin and Timothy Guetterman (2023) identified several existing special issues that discuss specific methodological features and innovations in mixed methods research or share applications of mixed methods within specific disciplines. However, none of the special issues outlined in their editorial focused on using a specific theoretical framework with a mixed methods approach. Instead, there are various articles, chapters, and books about applying theories to mixed methods such as Critical Race Theory (DeCuir-Gunby & Schutz, 2018; DeCuir-Gunby & Walker-DeVose, 2013), postcolonial Indigenous paradigms (Chilisa & Tsheko, 2014), Chicana feminist theory (Garcia & Ramirez, 2021) and feminist theory in general (Hesse-Biber, 2012), and complexity theory (Poth, 2018), among others. Mixed methods scholars have indicated that as a field we need to investigate the affordances, challenges, and methodological innovations that using theoretical perspectives might promote (Hesse-Biber & Johnson, 2013; Mertens, 2010). Rigorous mixed methods research includes a description of the theoretical grounding in framing the research problem, questions, and context as well as the research design, procedures, and practices (Levitt et al., 2018). Therefore, there is a need for researchers to contextualize their mixed methods processes (Plano Clark & Ivankova, 2016) within specific theoretical frameworks and more examples of such applications.

The purpose of this Special Issue is to collect innovative theorizations and applications of queer mixed methods research. Queer mixed methods research refers to “a queering of the methods used in mixed methods research and a queering of the methodology itself” (Shannon-Baker, 2021, p. 590). To queer methods refers to using queer theories to influence specific research practices or procedures, whereas to queer methodologies refers to using queer theories to interrogate research at the epistemological, ontological, and axiological levels (Ghaziani & Brim, 2019; Shannon-Baker, 2021).

Queer theories is a group of scholarship that takes various approaches to the study of sex, gender, sexuality, heteronormativity (the belief that heterosexuality should be the norm), and cisnormativity (the belief that cisgender is the norm, which is the alignment of one’s gender with the sex they were assigned at birth) (Butler, 2004; Foucault, 1990; Hall, 2003; Johnson, 2001; McCann & Monaghan, 2020; Sedgwick, 1990; Warner, 1991). Among other philosophical paradigms, queer theorists employ poststructuralist perspectives, which explore how identities and subjectivities are discursively (re)produced through language such as the words used to describe gender or sexuality (Wright & Zhang, 2021), and postmodern perspectives, which investigate the influence of power particularly through specific lenses like sex, gender, and sexuality (Dilley, 1999; Shannon-Baker, 2023). Queer theories are often used to study the experiences of people in the LGBTQ+ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and other gender or sexual minorities) community including their experiences with intersectional forms of oppression and culturally specific experiences of queerness (e.g., Anzaldúa, 2009; Brim, 2020; Ferguson, 2004; McRuer, 2013; Muñoz, 1999; Pereira, 2019; Samuels, 2003). These theories are used to interrogate binaries, challenge normative assumptions, embrace creative and fluid interpretations of self and community, and (re)imagine queer futures (e.g., Driskill, 2010; Halberstam, 2011; Rodríguez, 2014).

Defining Queer Approaches to Mixed Methods Research

Queer theories have been applied to research methods and methodology (e.g., Browne & Nash, 2010; Compton et al., 2018; Ghaziani & Brim, 2019) including queer qualitative research (e.g., Goldberg et al., 2009; Squire et al., 2019; Tanaka & Cruz, 1998; Weeks, 2022; Wozolek, 2019), queer arts-based research (e.g., Zepeda, 2014), and queer quantitative research (e.g., Garvey, 2019; Grzanka, 2016). At the philosophical level, queer theories can be used to influence how researchers construct research practices, see research as part of a knowledge production or representation process, and envision their own role in the research process (Ghaziani & Brim, 2019; Weeks, 2022). For example, queer theory can be used to support qualitative researchers’ focus on participant selection in studying the daily experiences of LGBTQ+ adults and youth (Ahmed, 2006; Wozolek, 2019). Queer theories can be combined with other frameworks to emphasize relationality and disrupt binaries through research practices such as the creation of art and visual storytelling (Zepeda, 2014). At the data collection and analysis levels, several researchers have used queer theories or queer theoretical arguments to critique practices of writing quantitative items about sexuality (e.g., Garvey, 2019) and analyze and represent quantitative data on gender and sexuality (e.g., Doan, 2016; Grzanka, 2016).

Researchers have called for the use of mixed methods in studying queer people’s experiences (e.g., Heasley, 2021) and the application of non-binary thinking in critical mixed methods approaches (e.g., Duarte, 2023). Although there are examples of researchers using mixed methods to study the experiences of LGBTQ+ people (e.g., Conner & Okamura, 2022; A. E. Goldberg et al., 2020; Harrison, 2021) and queer-related topics (e.g., Enderstein, 2019; Jackson et al., 2021), more examples are needed to explore how researchers queer the methods in and features of mixed methods studies. This Special Issue is designed to meet this need.

There are both synergies and tensions between queering methods or methodologies and mixed methods research (Shannon-Baker, 2021). The synergies include how both queer theories and mixed methods emphasize interdisciplinarity, question whether some methods or research paradigms are incommensurate with one another, and embrace methods that explore complex human experiences. The tensions include the focus on typologizing within the field of mixed methods research, which queer theorists generally would disrupt due to the way that labels can create dichotomies and false boundaries in an otherwise complex world. The articles in this Special Issue will explore these and more synergies and tensions between queer theories and mixed methods research.

Potential Topics and Article Types for the Special Issue

A central question for this Special Issue is the following: How do researchers queer the features, methods, and processes of mixed methods? Articles in the Special Issue should meet two criteria. First, since the Journal of Mixed Methods Research (JMMR) is a methodological journal focused on the mixed methods research methodology, articles should add value and contribute to the methodological and theoretical mixed methods literature. Second, articles should also focus on how the practices or procedures used in a mixed methods study or the methodology itself demonstrates queering (Ghaziani & Brim, 2019; Shannon-Baker, 2021).

The Special Issue will include articles across the main types published in JMMR: commentaries (making an argument about combining queer theories with mixed methods), empirical papers (applications of queer mixed methods), methodological papers (descriptions of how to do queer mixed methods based on one or more empirical examples), and research notes (brief article about a queer mixed methods study). The following topics and approaches are especially encouraged:

• Methodological articles describing how researchers queered integration practices, which refers to the intentional interface of multiple methodological approaches and can occur at the design, data, and representation levels (Fetters et al., 2013);

• Methodological articles that describe how researchers queered the representation of mixed methods research (e.g., visualizing their mixed methods process, representing findings in ways that demonstrate queer theoretical tenets);

• Empirical studies that demonstrate a queering of mixed methods;

• Participatory mixed methods research studies with queer people;

• Theoretical or conceptual essays about the tensions between queer theories and mixed methods research, which may include:

• The binary between quantitative and qualitative research approaches in the field of mixed methods and

• Disrupting mixed methods design typologies for a more fluid approach to framing the mixed methods process;

• Mixed methods self-study approaches by queer and/or trans researchers;

• Systematic review of research conducted applying queer theories to mixed methods; and

• Recommendations for queerly engaging in researcher positionality within mixed methods research.

Article submissions from any discipline or those that are interdisciplinary are welcome.

Submission and Review Process for the Special Issue

Articles should demonstrate a contribution to the application of and/or theorizing of mixed methods research. Authors are encouraged to (a) read and cite the relevant literature in both queer theories and mixed methods research; (b) review articles previously published in JMMR to see how authors (i) make the case for their contribution to mixed methods and (ii) explicitly describe the related features of mixed methods studies; (c) review the guidelines offered in a previous JMMR editorial about publishing methodological articles in this journal (Fetters & Molina-Azorin, 2019); and (d) email the Special Issue guest editor (Peggy Shannon-Baker, pshannonbaker@georgiasouthern.edu) with questions.

Manuscripts should be submitted through the JMMR online submission system. Indicate in your cover letter that the article is being submitted for the Special Issue on Queer Approaches to Mixed Methods Research. Submissions will be accepted until February 1, 2024. Submissions that clear initial editorial review as meeting the criteria of the Special Issue (see previous section) will then be double-blind peer reviewed. All authors included in proposed articles will be added to the JMMR reviewer system and may be asked to review up to one other proposed article for the Special Issue. However, reviewing is not a requirement for inclusion in the Special Issue. The Special Issue will tentatively be published as part of the January 2025 issue of JMMR. The Special Issue will then be ungated/free to read temporarily after publishing.

Potential Contribution to Mixed Methods Research

This Special Issue will contribute to the mixed methods literature in several ways. First, the empirical articles published in the issue will provide clear demonstrations of theoretically grounded integration, mixed methods designs, and visualizations of mixed methods. Second, applying queer theories especially to the integration process may identify innovative ways of mixing multiple methodologies, including approaches that may balance the emphasis on the data being mixed, which would be of interest to those pursuing either convergent designs or equal priority designs. Third, this Special Issue has the potential to enhance the mixed methods field’s use of LGBTQ+ inclusive research practices. Although there are a series of recommendations for doing research with LGBTQ+ people (Ford et al., 2021; Garvey, 2019; Numer & Gahagan, 2009; Schilt et al., 2018), the example studies published in the Special Issue would have a mixed methods focus to such recommendations.

Additionally, readers will benefit from seeing examples of theoretically grounded mixed methods and the possibility of innovative integration, mixed methods designs, and/or visualizations of mixed methods. Such readers may also not be familiar with best practices for LGBTQ+ inclusive research practices, so articles that describe their use of theories and such inclusive practices for a generalist audience will be helpful.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

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