A Slice of Diversity

Abstract

Among the uses of poetry in qualitative inquiry is its ability to help us reflect on, play against, or perform a topic of interest (Prendergast, 2006). This writer attended a conference on the “Pedagogy of Privilege” and immersed himself in the discussion of multidimensional diversities, hence the production of this poem. Written from an etic perspective, this ethnographic poem is not a representation of ethnographic reality (Denzin, 1997; Maynard & Cahnmann-Taylor, 2010), but an abstraction of composite identities. This poem interrogates categories of sexual and gender identities, acknowledges multiple emotions, embodied experiences, and space; with an invitation for others to integrate their own voices and experiences. This poem is a form of writer’s reflexivity. Pedagogically, this poem could help students of social work and other helping professions to grapple with the complexity and fluidity of gender and sexual identities and the definition of family.