Queering Ethnography: Acting Out in the Academia

Paloma Fernández-Rasines
Cultural Anthropology
Duke University
Paper held at:
1999 SEC: Constructing Qmmunities, Duke University, Spring 1999

When I was going to approach my first ethnographic fieldwork I had never heard about Queer
I think that I wanted to be a feminist anthropologist by the time I met Teresa del Valle, w
Then, I fortunately got funded to accomplish a doctoral research in Social Anthropology. I
I arrived to the ethnographic site in October 1993 and didn’t think that me having sex with
By being an affiliate scholar in the Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales in Quito
Having my mind copying with those issues and while I was collecting my ethnographic data, G
I had previously known about politics of sexual embodiment cross-culturally in “L’anatomie
To be honest, given the amount of work that I had already done I was quite determined to pr
Notwithstanding I began to get concerned with epistemological issues and the politics of ma
By the time I was collecting live-stories from people out of African descent, I was perfect
Soon afterward my friend María who held a managerial position happened to get involved in a
Her request felt so compelling to me. Although we never were either lovers or partners she
As far as I remember the process went through my fragmented identity, having women as subje
In spite of all that, being compelled to reject the eventual possibility of such a nominati
Back to the academic arena, I must say that my adviser was tremendously supportive
The outcome of all my concerns was finally enfolded and then entitled as: “Diáspora
When writing my epistemological premises I made clear that my dissertation didn’t a
When addressing the historical framework I would attempt to explain for example, wh
I would also posit heterosexual intercourse and desire as problematic when dealing
I believe mine attempted to be seeing as a Queer ethnography. After all this proces