Edited by Lisa Jean Moore and Damien W Riggs

Published: 2013
ISBN: 978-1-921980-23-7
Pages: 160

Overview

Over the past three decades, the international explosion of scholarship in the areas of gender, sex and sexuality has created new fields of inquiry and approaches in the cross-disciplinary fields of the humanities, social, and natural sciences. Innovative methodologies have emerged to address the thorny issues of researching identity and subject positions, practices and activities. Yet despite this, there is still much to be done in the development of mixed methods approaches to the study of gender, sex and sexuality, in addition to further attention being required as to what constitutes best practice in terms of qualitative and quantitative research in the field.

This issue examines ‘methodology’ in gender, sex and sexualities research, both theoretical and empirical approaches to research on gender, sex and sexuality. Qualitative and quantitative, as well as mixed method approaches are examined. Essays that expose the challenges, emerging issues and solutions in combining innovative approaches and evaluation programs are also covered. The following are sections of focus for the special issue:

Section 1: Epistemological background for research on genders and sexualities:

• Historical and philosophical perspectives
• Interdisciplinary domains, postdisciplinary domains: Gay & Lesbian studies; Transgender studies; Queer studies
• Mainly quantitative content analysis and related approaches
• Mainly qualitative content analysis and related approaches

Section 2: Theoretical issues and planning stages for multiple approach:

Examples of studies using multiple approaches which have attempted diverse -

• Sampling strategies
• Data formats
• Sequencing of data sets
• Integration of data sets
• From qualitative to quantitative designs
• From quantitative to qualitative designs
• ‘Born to be mixed’

Section 3: Challenges and emerging issues:

• Queer methodologies
• Intersectionality studies
• Ethical issues (Role of participants, researcher and team based approaches, clients and users)
• Analytical issues
• Reporting information

Section 4: Mixed methods and evaluation for intervention and research with under-represented groups:

• Sexual education
• Sexual minorities rights
• Disability studies and sex
• Children
• Pornography
• Sex work/sex workers

Work that understands the representations and meanings of identities, bodies, movements, and anatomies to accrue particular weights and valences depending on the cultural moments in which they are produced and circulated are included. We have also covered topics that interrogate methodology in relation to gender, sexuality and sex on topics such as war, institutions, law, literature, popular culture, ‘natural disasters’, state and intimate violence, citizenship, immigration and migration, environment, population, health, and economic instabilities. This issue has contributions with US, global and transnational foci.

Table of Contents

Editorial: Mixing it up: Contemporary gender and sexuality research methods
– Lisa Jean Moore and Damien W Riggs

Misgendering in English language contexts: Applying non-cisgenderist methods to feminist research
– Y Gavriel Ansara and Peter Hegarty

Methodological considerations from a Kinsey Institute mixed methods pilot project
– Janice McCabe, Amanda E Tanner, Jack K Martin, J Scott Long and Julia R Heiman

‘Yes you’re Tamil! but are you Tamil enough?’ An Indian researcher interrogates ‘shared social location’ in feminist immigration research
– Namita N Manohar

Disciplinary crossings and methodological contaminations in gender research: A psycho-anthropological survey on Neapolitan femminielli
– Eugenio Zito

Queering pornography through qualitative methods
– Natalie Ingraham

Schooling gender: Ethical dilemmas in employing critical youth studies
– Sarah Prior

General Section

Using mixed methods to analyse barriers to primary paediatric health access
– Yvonne Parry and Eileen Willis

Methodological challenges in studying urban Aboriginal homelessness
– Wilfreda E Thurston, Nellie D Oelke and David Turner

Challenges associated with qualitative interviewing for Indigenous research: Insights from experience
– Pam McGrath, Nicole Rawson and Leonora Adidi

Practice note: Using debriefing interviews to promote authenticity and transparency in mixed research
– Kathleen M T Collins, Anthony J Onwuegbuzie, R Burke Johnson and Rebecca K Frels