Am not! Are too! Using queer standpoint in postmodern critical ethnography

In this essay, I examine the act of identity assumption by researchers for the effects on their interpretations of data. This examination is itself made more complex by the inclusion of a researcher agenda necessary for critical ethnography and by the insertion of a queer standpoint that renders that researcher agenda queer. After presenting an example of queer identity in my own research, I examine several frameworks that help explain the necessity and the productivity of broadening interpretive practices in critical research. The variable text practices consistent with postmodernity (Lodge, 1977; Lyotard, 1984), the formation of queer identities (Seidman, 1993), the use of queer identity in theory (Champagne, 1995), and the relationship of identity formation and interpretive practices in qualitative research (King, 1998b) are presented as the body of the paper. As I struggled for cohesion in this manuscript, it occurred to me that this is not a linear argument. Instead, one should think about the different sections of the essay as successive overlays on the issues of representation. My goal as a writer is to develop awareness of how the use of queer theory can inform interpretations.