Coming Out (as a Poststructuralist): A Rant

Abstract

The authors, within the context of the first author Eric’s experiences, explore the politics of a hostile, academically violent pretenure environment as a poststructuralist scholar within a framework of cultural humility. Within this essay, we illuminate issues Eric experienced only after the idea of early tenure was presented by his dean. Most faculty were supportive of Eric and his research; a few were not. We examine issues of prejudice in scholarly works traditionally left unexplored. We wonder what is lost when one way of knowing is privileged over others and advocate for methodological humility. We question the depth of others’ approaches to research when their philosophical stances are unclear and uninterrogated. We challenge researchers to understand and accommodate research approaches which differ from more “received” approaches. We challenge ourselves and qualitative colleagues to assist in the process of respecting and advocating for aesthetic qualitative representations by including them in comprehensive literature reviews. We encourage all scholars to be thoughtful, reflexive, and respectful with colleagues and themselves in their research pursuits.

An overview of coming out research: Introducing a three‐lens typology

“…Transcending the coming out focus—though not the intersectionality—of sexual and gender identities entirely, researchers wrote about or reported participants' wording of coming out as fat 39 (e.g., Gurrieri & Cherrier, 2013; Murray, 2005; Saguy & Ward, 2011), HIV positive (Broqua, 2009; He & Rofel, 2010; Martinez et al., 2014; Paxton, 2002; Sayles et al., 2007) which, among LGBTQ+ people is sometimes referred to as the ‘second closet’ (Berg & Ross, 2014; Di Feliciantonio, 2020), ill (e.g., Myers, 2004; Paterson, 2008; Schneider & Conrad, 1980), mentally ill (e.g., Bos et al., 2009; Corrigan et al., 2010; Corrigan et al., 2016; Corrigan & Matthews, 2003; Golay et al., 2021), disabled (e.g., Davidson & Henderson, 2010; Samuels, 2013; Smith & Jones, 2020; Solis, 2006), atheist (e.g., Cloud, 2017; Smith, 2011; Zimmerman et al., 2015), Jewish (e.g., Stratton, 2000), poor or working‐class within academia (e.g., Callahan, 2008; Tokarczyk & Sowinska, 1997), being an undocumented immigrant (e.g., Cisneros & Bracho, 2019; Enriquez & Saguy, 2016), vegetarian (e.g., Korinek, 2012), non‐drinker at work (e.g., Romo, 2018), an alcoholic (e.g., Romo et al., 2016), and being a drug‐using academic (e.g., Ross et al., 2020), violent man (e.g., Gottzén, 2017), or poststructuralist (e.g., Teman & Lahman, 2019). While often acknowledging the limitations of the application of coming out in these new areas, authors argue for its conceptual benefit.…”

Foucauldian Discourse Analysis: Moving Beyond a Social Constructionist Analytic

“…As noted by Teman, who embarked on qualitative research methods after a long period of working with quantitative methods, “It was a beautiful moment. I felt freed, liberated, and unshackled” (Teman & Lahman, 2019, p. 57). Lastly, but not least, qualitative research produces knowledge obtained from self-reflection rather than casual analysis, inferences from numerical data, measurement, and techniques (Agger, 1991; Khan, 2018; Khan & Raby, 2020).…”