Cruising Boston and Providence: The roles of place and desire for reflexive queer research(ers)

Abstract

Feminist methodological interventions have advanced our understanding of reflexivities, leading us to question our own positions and intersections in relation to the field and those we study. More recent methodological contributions from queer authors add notions of fluid researcher identities and researcher erotics to reflexivities. However, such interventions frame reflexivity as a research practice applied to the research process or occurrences in the field. This article argues for a continuous, although never complete, use of reflexivity that addresses the researcher’s personal desires and orientations—there before the research started—that can influence what topics we study, the questions we ask, the methods and sites we choose, how we interact with others in the field, and our analyses. I use ethnographic data on gay and queer spaces in Boston, Massachusetts, and Providence, Rhode Island, to demonstrate the utility of this reflexivity, especially for sex research.