Cultural Studies http://csc.sagepub.

com/
<=> Critical Methodologies

Telling Stories: Reflexivity, Queer Theory, and Autoethnography

Tony E. Adams and Stacy Holman Jones
Cultural Studies <=> Critical Methodologies 2011 11: 108
DOI: 10.1177/1532708611401329

The online version of this article can be found at:

http://csc.sagepub.com/content/11/2/108

Published by:

http://www.sagepublications.com

Additional services and information for Cultural Studies <=> Critical Methodologies can be found at:

Email Alerts: http://csc.sagepub.com/cgi/alerts

Subscriptions: http://csc.sagepub.com/subscriptions

Reprints: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.nav

Permissions: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav

Citations: http://csc.sagepub.com/content/11/2/108.refs.html

>> Version of Record - Apr 11, 2011

What is This?

Downloaded from csc.sagepub.com at SEIR on September 20, 2013

 Cultural Studies ↔ Critical Methodologies

Telling Stories: Reflexivity, Queer 11(2) 108­–116

© 2011 SAGE Publications
Reprints and permission: http://www.
Theory, and Autoethnography sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav
DOI: 10.1177/1532708611401329
http://csc.sagepub.com

Tony E. Adams1 and Stacy Holman Jones2

Abstract
This essay focuses on intersections of reflexivity as both an orientation to research and a writing practice that brings
together the method of autoethnography and the paradigm of queer theory. Taking seriously autoethnography’s and queer
theory’s commitments to uncertain, fluid, and becoming subjectivities, multiple forms of knowledge and representations,
and research as an agent of change, we write a series of reflexively queer personal texts. These texts ask us—as writers
and readers in a community of scholars—to question our desire to name and claim stories and to embrace the gifts and
challenges of open texts and the importance of reflexivity as we test the limits of knowledge and certainty.

Keywords
reflexivity, autoethnography, queer theory

(Re)turningi
May 2007: You have the whole day to work, to write together.
You are working on a handbook chapter that traces the con-
nections and possibilities of writing autoethnography and
queer theory together (Adams & Holman Jones, 2008). Until
today you have been writing alone, sending drafts to each
other through email, each inbox arrival a gift. You are worried
that getting together will spoil the momentum and excite-
ment of your exchange. Thankfully and perhaps inevitably,
you are wrong. The day flies, as do your ideas, your fingers
floating on the keys. You finish the essay and send it off,
feeling grateful for your collaboration and your work. A few
months later, you are invited to share your essay at a confer-
ence and to recast it for a second and a then a third edited
collection (Holman Jones & Adams, 2010a, 2010b). Each
time you return to this work, you reconsider, revise, restruc-
ture, and write something new. Circling back, it is difficult
to know where to start. And then an idea or an experience
pulls you into the river of story, into a beginning, again, “dense
with potential” (Stewart, 2007, p. 129). This circling, pull-
ing, and beginning again is reflexive in its movement—turning
back on and to language, thought, self, culture, and power;
writing deja vu prose that makes the familiar hum with
newness; sketching how certain identities, situations, and cul-
tural “facts” are made to appear natural and normal (Rosaldo,
1989, p. 39); and giving back a measured, contingent, open-
ended story, again and again (Foley, 2002).
July 2010: We step again into the river of this essay, a
reflexive return to the hold that autoethnography and queer
theory have on each other and on us. If, as Foley (2002)
suggests, we can stop the flow of reflexivity long enough to
catch a glimpse of its movement, we can make out many
forms of and approaches to (re)turning: the confessional/
autobiographical embrace of subjectivity, contingency, and
connection; the feminist insistence on historicized, strategic,
politicized, and thoroughly lived standpoints; a commitment
to theorizing how our work constitutes and traffics in knowl-
edge production; and a deconstructive skepticism about the
workings of reality, power, identity, and experience. A prac-
tice of holding seemingly contradictory ways of knowing in
tension (Foley, 2002, p. 477), reflexivity is the means—the
action, the movement, the performance—by which we engage
a personal and queer scholarship. (Re)turning, we revisit,
shift, and refigure earlier iterations of our queer work, show-
ing what it means to be reflexively queer, attending to the
ethics of being reflexively queer within personal texts, and
tracing the importance of using reflexively queer autoeth-
nographic work for socially just means and ends. We (re)turn
to questions of clarity and transparency, to the desire to
name and claim stories—identifying who and what they’re
about, who can tell them and for what purposes, and what
1
Northeastern Illinois University, Chicago
2
University of South Florida, Tampa
Corresponding Author:
Tony E. Adams, PhD, Assistant Professor Department of
Communication, Media & Theatre, Northeastern Illinois University,
5500 N. St. Louis Ave., FA 240 Chicago, Illinois 60625
Email: tony.e.adams@gmail.com

Downloaded from csc.sagepub.com at SEIR on September 20, 2013

Adams and Jones 109
they know and might do in the world. We circle back to the
workings of ambiguity, the gifts and challenges of open
texts, and the importance of reflexivity as we test the limits
of knowledge and certainty (Gingrich-Philbrook, 2005;
Madison, 2006; Pollock, 2006). We write to leave room for
interpretation, for misunderstandings, for not knowing. We
write to leave things unfinished and unanswered (Holman
Jones & Adams, 2010b, p. 211).
Telling Stories You Can’t Tell
July 2010: You thought the cruise would be relaxing, a space
for fun away from meetings and summer camps, schedules,
and obligations. And it is relaxing, it is fun. But the swim-
ming and sun have left you exhausted and her buzzing with
energy. Your third, weary request that she pick up her wet
bathing suit, which is soaking the rug next to the bed, sends
her—and you—over the edge. She refuses. You retaliate
with a punishment that does not match the crime: she must
hand over her spending money until she can learn to listen
and to comply with your requests. She bursts into tears. She
says you are being unfair, mean. She begs you to reconsider.
You sit, silently absorbing her words, sorry you overreacted
but afraid to reverse your decision until she makes an effort.
She becomes more and more upset. You stay still and silent.
She crouches down, draws her hands into fists, and seethes.
This outburst surprises you. You ask why she is so angry—
now and for the past few weeks. She looks hard at you and
stammers, “I’ll tell you. But it will ruin everything.”
Your heart pounds in your ears. You begin telling your-
self the stories of your worst fears. Has something happened?
Has something—or someone—hurt her? You take a deep
breath and say, “Please. You can talk to me. Tell me. What-
ever it is, it’ll be okay. Please.”
“You’ll be upset.”
“No, I won’t, I promise. Something is bothering you.
You need to tell me so I can help. Please.”
She looks away. Her mouth opens and then shuts. She’s
changed her mind. “It’s just . . . unfair. I earned that money
and you shouldn’t be able to take it from me.” Your chance—
to hear her tell her story, like so many other chances over the
last month—has vanished.
Later, you sit at the small desk in your cabin writing,
wondering where this leads, what it says—about her, about
you, about your relationship, about what you can or should
do to help her, about the power and possibility of telling
stories. You wonder about stories that feel too powerful
to tell. And you wonder what it all means for writing, for
scholarship and criticism, for collected essays on the call
(and the pushing and the struggle) of ethnographic reflexiv-
ity. For as long as you can remember, you have told and
written stories. You use stories to reflect on, ask questions
about, and imagine change from inside the “politically and
Downloaded from csc.sagepub.com at SEIR on September 20, 2013
personally problematic worlds of everyday life” (Denzin,
2003, p. 236). You tell these stories because you believe
they do something in the world to create a little knowle­
dge, a little humanity, a little room to live and move in and
around the constraints and heartbreaks of culture and cate-
gories, identities and ideologies. You wonder whether this
is what your stories do or should do. You wonder whether
the people in your stories recognize and admire themselves,
whether they are angry or embarrassed that your words
about them are in the world. Sometimes you are sure about
your answers to these questions and sometimes you don’t
know.
And what of the stories we are not ready or willing to
tell? What of the stories that blink and waver on the thresh-
old of thought, speech, and intelligibility? Remember, “Behind
the story I tell is the one I don’t. Behind the story you hear
is the one I wish I could make you hear” (Allison, 1996,
p. 39). What of the stories we want to tell because they are
so important and enraging and courageous and hopeful but
don’t because they aren’t ours—alone—to tell? Does not
telling these stories, or telling a story about all we can’t tell,
do something in the world? Perhaps telling the story of the
story you can’t tell “points to the inchoate but very real
sense of the sensibilities, socialities, and ways of attending
to things that give events their significance . . . [and] ges-
tures not toward the clarity of answers but toward the texture
of knowing” (Stewart, 2007, p. 129). Perhaps telling such
stories is necessary precisely because they are not sanctioned
and, therefore, considered legitimate stories worthy of our
attention and respect (Clair, 1998, p. 74). And perhaps this
is what a reflexively queer autoethnography adds up to, just
stories, texts that tell and don’t tell about “bodies literally
affecting one another: human bodies, discursive bodies,
bodies of thought” (Stewart, 2007, p. 128). Recent stories
of bodies literally affecting one another tell and don’t tell
about swinging, penetration, catastrophe, heresy, and closets,
to name just a few (Adams, 2011; Berry, 2007; Holman
Jones, 2009; Minge & Zimmerman, 2009; Spry, 2010).
Rather than a mirror providing a self-affirming reflection,
we see a reflexivity in autoethnography and queer theory
that works through and around the fulcrum and tension of
a hinge. The hinge is an instrument of transitivity and its
movement is inspired and linked, acting and acted upon,
turning back on itself and moving forward. The hinge asks
us to align the seemingly divided perspectives of autoethno­
graphy with queer theory so that we can tell and untell stories
that matter. We are interested in what can happen when we
hinge experience and analysis, ambiguity and clarity, dia-
logue and debate, accessibility and academic activism, just
stories and high theory. We are not after a homogenizing
blend or mechanistic prioritizing of concerns. Rather, we
want to try to “remap the terrain” of autoethnography, queer
theory, and reflexivity without “removing the fences that
110 Cultural Studies ↔ Critical Methodologies 11(2)
make good neighbors” (Alexander, 2003, p. 352). We want
to ask what autoethnography, queer theory, and reflexivity
should do to, for, and in research and in our efforts to honor
the sanctity of life and human dignity. We want to ask ques-
tions and listen for responses that do not read as answers, but
rather call up the “texture of knowing” and the pleasures of
“an impulse toward potentiality” (Stewart, 2007, p. 128).
Throughout this essay, we use “I” and “we,” “you” and
“her” to tell our stories. We use these terms because they
combine us, as authors and readers, into a shared experience.
My experience—our experience—could be and could reframe
your experience. My experience—our experience—could
politicize your experience and could motivate and mobilize
you, and us, to action. My experience—our experience—
could inspire you to return to your own stories, asking again
and again what they tell and what they leave out. Our “I” is
fashioned after Pollock’s (2007, p. 246) “performative ‘I’,”
and away from a first-person scholarly narrator who is self-
referential but unavailable to criticism or revision—to being
reflexively cultural and reflexively queer. Our performative
‘I’ is “made real through the performance of writing” (p. 247),
particularly in performances that link autoethnography,
queer theory, and reflexivity. Our “I” hinges us—Tony and
Stacy—to “you,” our readers and “we,” a community of
scholars ready to write ourselves into new ways of being
and becoming. We begin by taking a kind of relational inven-
tory, exploring what commitments join and hold apart the
methods, paradigms, and practices of autoethnography, queer
theory, and reflexivity.
Inventory
July 2010: You begin to think about the connections and
divergences between autoethnography, queer theory, and
reflexivity. Not wanting to make regulative, definitive, or
finite claims, you struggle with how to write the spark, poten-
tial, and possibility of linking method, paradigm, and practice.
You think about the relationships and words start to flow.
One way to assess the goodness—of fit, purpose, and
goals—of a relationship is to think about commitment. Com-
mitment is both personal and political; it is an investment in
the now that anticipates a future based on common goals and
cooperation (Foster, 2008, pp. 84-85). Commitment can
also be an unquestioned value that elides difference and
denies nonnormative identities and lives (Foster, 2008).
Autoethnography—a method that uses personal experi-
ence with a culture and/or a cultural identity to make unfamiliar
characteristics of the culture and/or identity familiar for
insiders and outsiders—and queer theory—a dynamic and
shifting theoretical paradigm that developed in response to
a normalizing of heterosexuality and from a desire to disrupt
insidious social conventions—share cooperative ideological
commitments. These commitments come together to enact,
Downloaded from csc.sagepub.com at SEIR on September 20, 2013
revise, and refine reflexive research practices: Autoethnog-
raphy, as a research method, tries to disrupt traditional and
dominant ideas about research, particularly what research is
and how research should be done (Diversi & Moreira, 2010;
Ellis, 2009; Ellis & Bochner, 2000; Richardson, 2009). Queer
theory advocates a similar sensibility in its attempt to disrupt
traditional and dominant ideas about what passes as “normal”
in a variety of contexts (Alexander, 2008; Browne & Nash,
2010; Cobb, 2007; Jeppesen, 2010; Solis, 2007). The impulse
to disrupt traditional and dominant ideas about research is
a hallmark of deconstructionist approaches to reflexivity
(Denzin, 2003; Foley, 2002; Visweswaran, 1994).
Queer theorists (re)appropriate extant research, language,
texts, practices, and beliefs in novel and innovative ways
(Alexander, 2008; Berger, 2010; Browne & Nash, 2010;
McCreery, 2008; Yep & Elia, 2007). Similarly, autoeth-
nographers tell and recast personal experience in novel and
innovative ways, simultaneously critiquing and filling gaps
in existing scholarship (Boylorn, 2006; Defenbaugh, 2008;
Tillmann, 2009; Warren-Findlow, 2009). This commitment
to novelty and innovation is a key component of confes-
sional, performative, and standpoint approaches to reflexivity
(Alexander, 2005; Foley, 2002; Olesen, 2005; Olivas, 2009).
Autoethnographers treat identities and experiences as
uncertain, fluid, open to interpretation, and able to be revised
(Adams, 2009; Ellis, 2009; Goodall, 2006; Holman Jones
2010; Wyatt, 2010). Queer theorists share this sentiment by
working against the fixity and firmness, certainty and closure,
stability and rigid categorization of identities and experi-
ences (Butler, 2004; Burlington & Butler, 1999; Hanmer,
2010; Plummer, 2005). The instability of identities and exp­
eriences, for researchers and subjects and authors and readers,
is also demonstrated by critical approaches to reflexivity
(Foley 2002; Kincheloe & McLaren, 2000; Olivas, 2009;
Visweswaran 1994).
Queer theorists advocate for humane, equitable change
and conceive of ways research, texts, and bodies can serve
as sites of ideological and discursive “trouble” (Burlington
& Butler, 1999; Chavéz, 2009; Jeppesen, 2010; Irving,
2008; Munoz 1999; Solis, 2007). Many autoethnographers
also try to make ideological and discursive trouble while
also creating humane and equitable ways of living (Berry,
2007; Dykins Callahan, 2008; Minge & Zimmerman, 2009;
Myers, 2008). Making ideological and discursive trouble is
the heart of a critically reflexive approach to research, an
approach in which a researcher “acts as an agent of change”
(Denzin, 2003, p. 237; see also Denzin & Lincoln, 2008;
Kincheloe & McLaren, 2000; Plummer, 2005; Slagle, 2007).
Autoethnography and queer theory also share interrelated
criticisms as well as complementary responses to these
criticisms. These critiques and responses stem from autoeth-
nography’s and queer theory’s commitment to reflexivity:
Queer theory is criticized for being too theoretical and
Adams and Jones 111
impractical (Burlington & Butler, 1999; Halberstam, 2005)
yet praised for being able to make movement and motivate
political action (Jeppesen, 2010; Gamson, 2003; Wilchins
2004). Autoethnography is criticized for being atheoretical
(Atkinson, 1997) and poorly written (Gingrich-Philbrook,
2005; Moro, 2006) yet praised for being applicable to lived
realities (Goodall, 2004; Tillmann, 2009). Various appro­
aches to reflexivity have also been criticized for placing too
much or too little emphasis on making theoretical claims as
well as an (in)ability to change lived experience (Denzin
2003). However, the goals of making theory and motivating
change work best when held in productive, recursive tension
(Foley, 2002).
Autoethnography is criticized for being narcissistic, self-
indulgent, simplistic, and just too personal (Anderson, 2006;
Atkinson & Delamont, 2010; Buzard, 2003; Delamont, 2009;
Gans, 1999; Madison, 2006). Queer theory is criticized for
being too dense and difficult, and not personal enough
(Burlington & Butler, 1999; Halberstam, 2005). Autoethno­
graphers (e.g., Adams, 2009; Boylorn, 2006; Ellis, 2009;
Holman Jones, 2005a; Pelias, 2009) and queer theorists
(Butler, 2004; Corey & Nakayama, 1997; Nakayama &
Corey, 2003) have replied by emphasizing the reciprocity
of the “I” and the “we,” the reciprocity of story and theory,
the reciprocity of the personal and political. Such reciprocity
characterizes the use and valuing of reflexivity in research
(Alexander, 2005; Foley, 2002; Turner, 1988).
Queer theory is sometimes considered elitist, Western,
colonialist, and White (Alexander, 2008; Halberstam, 2005;
Lee, 2003; Yep & Elia, 2007). Autoethnography is some-
times considered colonialist and solipsistic, patriarchal,
and available only to the tenured without fear of reprisal
(Anderson, 2006; Buzard, 2003; Gingrich-Philbrook, 2005;
Poulos, 2010). Queer theorists have responded by refigur-
ing queer identities and queer theory to signal, signify, and
sound the concerns of diverse subjects and subjectivities on
questions of race, ethnicity, class, sex, desire, gender, and abil-
ity (Alexander, 2008; Lee, 2003; Moreman, 2009; Solis, 2007;
Yep & Elia, 2007). Autoethnographers have responded by
using various media to represent “findings” (Adams, 2008);
valuing embodiment, performance, and “alternative” ways
of knowing (Denzin, 2003; Holman Jones, 2005b, 2009);
embracing the cultural standpoints a researcher embodies
(Boylorn, 2006; Diversi & Moreira, 2010; Marvasti, 2006);
and respecting the relationships a researcher has with those
she or he studies—no longer can a researcher enter a setting,
mine others for data, and leave without emp­athetically ack­
nowledging these others (Ellis, 2007). A commitment to
diversity—of media and knowledges, subjects and subjec-
tivities, standpoints and relationships—foregrounds the use
and importance of critical reflexivity (Alexander, 2005; Butler,
2005; Plummer, 2005; Olivas, 2009). Autoethnography,
Downloaded from csc.sagepub.com at SEIR on September 20, 2013
queer theory, and reflexivity share commitments that are
personal and political, tense and complicated, disruptive
and open-to-revision, humane and ethical. By interrogating
the method, paradigm, and practice, we discern and docu-
ment the ways selves enact—live—cultures as well as how
cultures live in and through selves, even when they can never
be fully known (Butler, 2005; Pelias, 2009). We also work
to find ways selves can be used physically and discursively
to disrupt insidious cultural practices and norms, all the while
making an attempt to acknowledge—though not necessarily
accommodate—the ways in which others are imp­licated by
the self and the desire to create cultural trouble and change.
Such interrogation involves a rigorous call for reflexivity—
to reflect not only on the self, how the self works, and how
others are implicated by the self and the self’s desires, but
also on how we represent—in writing, performance, film,
and so on—the process and challenges of reflection. It
means making ourselves vulnerable to critique, by risking
living—in language and in life—the terms we keep in
question by embodying their possibilities without fixing
or determining their movements (Madison, 1998; see also
Alexander, 2005; Holman Jones, 2005a). For us, Tony and
Stacy, it means creating these possibilities by (re)turning,
again and again, to stories.
Possibility: Bearing Witness
Interrogating autoethnography, queer theory, and reflexivity
means conversing about ways that we—as teachers, writers,
researchers, activists, humans—try to document, ease or
eliminate, and bear witness to harmful social practices,
occasions of relational violence, and the trials and tribula-
tions of (desiring) normalcy. For instance, soon after we
share autoethnographies in the classes we teach, we often
get students who come to our office to share their stories of
lesbian, gay, bisexual, and queer experience as well as their
fears of research. “I’m not out to anyone,” one says; “My
parents disowned me,” says another. “Your work gave me
permission to do my research and my writing my way,” one
says; “I am afraid of making myself vulnerable in my res­
earch as a young scholar—before getting a job, before
tenure—but your work helps me see how I can take risks
without being afraid,” says another.
The autoethnographic means sharing politicized, prac-
tical, and cultural stories that resonate with others and
motivating these others to share theirs; bearing witness,
together, to possibilities wrought in telling. The queer means
making conversations about harmful situations go, working
to improve the world one person, family, classroom, con-
ference, and essay at a time. The reflexive means listening
to and for the silences and stories we can’t tell—not fully,
not clearly, not yet; returning, again and again, to the river
112 Cultural Studies ↔ Critical Methodologies 11(2)
of story accepting what you can never fully, never unques-
tionably know.
Possibility: Making
Change, Letting Go
May 2010: “I wish you’d come see me more,” she says. “It’s
only a three-hour drive.”
“I do my best,” you say. “I saw you last week. I’m over-
whelmed right now. And it is the end of the semester.”
A lie. You’re not in any mood to see her. Around her,
you feel beat up, hurt, and exhausted. Around her, you feel
like you can’t escape.
“You make time to go to conferences, but don’t make
time for me,” she says.
“It is important for my research and career to go to con-
ferences,” you respond.
“So I’m not important to you?”
“Why don’t you visit me?” you ask. “It’s only a three-
hour drive.”
“I feel like you don’t want me to visit,” she says.
You think: “Maybe I give off ‘I don’t want you to visit’
vibes. I am rarely ever in a mood to see her. Around her,
I feel beat up, hurt, and exhausted.”
You plan a visit one weekend. On Friday morning, the
day before, you become sick and are admitted to the hospi-
tal. You are not released until Saturday night. Needless to
say, the visit is cancelled.
“I knew you wouldn’t come see me,” she says.
“I’m sorry, but I didn’t know I’d get sick,” you respond
angrily.
“You probably planned it that way so you wouldn’t have
to see me.”
“I can’t believe you’d ever say such a thing,” you reply.
You don’t know how to make sense of the relationship, don’t
like interacting with her, and don’t know how to escape.
“You like Jake more than me,” she says.
“You visit Sarah and Robert more than me,” she says.
“How can you find time to visit Ryan and Rachelle, but
no time to visit me?”
“I’m tired of your accusations and comparisons,” you
reply. You also try to implement a new relational rule: “And
you can no longer ask about Jake, Sarah, Robert, Ryan, or
Rachelle.”
You create this “do not ask about” list not because you
don’t want her to know about the important people in your
life, but because she uses her knowledge of your interac-
tions with these others to discursively beat on you.
“I booked a ticket to see you on Friday morning,” you
say. “I leave Sunday afternoon.”
“That’s not long enough,” she says. “Don’t bother coming
at all.”
Downloaded from csc.sagepub.com at SEIR on September 20, 2013
“How long do you want me to stay?” you ask.
“At least a few more days,” she says.
“I teach on Thursdays and Tuesdays,” you respond. “I can’t
cancel my classes.”
“Whatever. You can find time to go to conferences or to
see Jake, Sarah, Robert, Ryan, or Rachelle. But you find no
time for me.”
“I am making time for you. I will arrive Friday morning
and leave Sunday afternoon.”
“I said that’s not long enough,” she replies. “Don’t bother
coming at all.”
Beat up, hurt, and exhausted—that’s how you feel. You
don’t know how to make sense of the relationship and don’t
like interacting with her. But you also feel like there’s no
escape.
Telling stories you can’t tell—being scared to tell this
story. You love her. But you’re not sure if it’s because you
must, because of obligation, or if there’s genuine care. And
what if she reads this? This story doesn’t have an identified
author, doesn’t position a writer—Stacy or Tony—as a
“trusted guide” or reporter on the links between “theoretical
categories and the real world,” between research “subjects”
and the characters in this story (Stewart, 2007, p. 5). But
risk still exists. Risk exists in the inseparability of life and
text, in the collapse of identity, experience, and representa-
tion (Adams, 2009, p. 623). There is, also, possibility in
how these stories and the unidentified characters who tell
them ask us to focus on the experience as event, as offering
up multiple interpretations of nonfoundational, wavering,
becoming identities (Holman Jones, 2009, p. 611). “You”
and “she” become identities that imagine, perform, and write
“not a flat and finished truth but some possibilities (and
threats) that have come into view in this scene, in these sto-
ries (Stewart, 2007, p. 5).
And so, I engage the autoethnographic, the telling of a
story, from experience, that illustrates the cultural expec-
tations of and requirements for being parents and being
children. I engage the queer, the telling a story that I cannot
tell out of a fear of a lawsuit, a story that even though is part
of my experience, is an experience also about someone else;
telling a story shrouded in silence, telling it with the hopes
of making discursive and relational trouble; using a coau-
thored, I-we-you voice—an ambiguous and fluid queer
textual technique. And I engage the reflexive by under-
standing norms that influence storytelling; understanding,
to the best of our ability, how we frame ourselves and others,
particularly how we make ourselves look good and just
while making others look bad and unruly; feeling guilty for
lying to and chastising another, for avoiding conflict rather
than trying to work through while simultaneously being
unsure of what to do or say; understanding how others imp­
licated by a story might feel or react, especially given that
Adams and Jones 113
they may react with difference and indifference or may never
have a chance to respond (Lorde, 1984); conceiving of
how we, Stacy and Tony, strategically use (or hide behind)
a coauthored, I-we-you voice.
Possibility: On (Not)
Being Acknowledged
Christmas 2009: The three of us peruse holiday cards, many
of which include pictures of families. We arrive at one—a
wife, her husband, and two of their three children.
“We should get a family picture of us,” she says. “You,
me, and Martin [her husband].”
“What about Jordan [your partner of the same sex]?”
you ask.
“It’d be nice to have just a picture of the family,” she
responds.
“Jordan is part of our family,” you say. “I will not take a
picture with you and Martin if Jordan isn’t included.”
Tears form in her eyes.
“I have a question,” you say. “Look at this card. There is
a wife, her husband, and two of their three children. Is this
correct?”
“Yes,” she replies.
“Why isn’t the third child in the picture?”
“He’s married,” she responds. “He sent a separate holi-
day card with a picture of him and his wife.”
“Do you think he should have taken a picture with his
parents and brothers?” you ask.
“No,” she says. “He is married, and is beginning his own
family.”
“That’s my point. Though I am not married, I am part-
nered. And . . .”
“But you aren’t married,” she interrupts.
“We can’t get married!” you yell, agitated by her igno-
rance. “It is not allowed in our state. We’ve had this
con­versation numerous times.”
“If you aren’t married, then your relationship isn’t as
meaningful, legitimate, or secure as a married couple,” she
replies.
“We are not having this conversation again,” you reply.
“Jordan and I love each other, and we have a wonderful life
together. If you can’t understand this—if you can’t under-
stand us as a meaningful, legitimate, and secure couple—then
I’m not sure I want to see you. Your disregard of us hurts.”
You begin to engage her, but stop; you’re tired of talking
and assume she will not understand. And you reflect upon
the autoethnographic, the telling of a story, from experi-
ence, that illustrates (heteronormative) expectations of what
passes as a family as well as how (legitimate) relationships
should look and feel; the queer, the telling of a story that cri-
tiques (harmful) expectations and brings attention to and
calling into question norms of how families and relationships
Downloaded from csc.sagepub.com at SEIR on September 20, 2013
look and feel; and the reflexive, the understanding, to the
best of our ability, how we frame ourselves and others, par-
ticularly how we make ourselves look good and just while
making others look bad and unruly; feeling guilty for chas-
tising another, of avoiding conflict rather than try to work
through it simultaneously being unsure of what to do or say;
understanding how others implicated by a story might feel
or react, especially given that they may never have a chance
to respond.
Possibility: Writing
Without Ending
July 2010: At home, away from the excitement and movement
and water, you settle back into your summer routine—
sleeping in, taking an hour or more to eat breakfast, then
reading or drawing before finally moving into the world
after noon, in the heat of the day. Missing the waterlogged
afternoons on the boat, you suggest the YMCA pool.
Immersed in the cool water, you float on your backs.
You close your eyes and listen to the muffled sound of her
hands moving. The sound changes, shifts. You open your
eyes and see her drifting further and further from you as she
keeps herself suspended on the surface of the water. You
watch her moving away, eyes closed. She navigates into the
deep end, only realizing this when her hand touches the
floating barrier that separates the swimming lanes from
the open water. Her head jerks up. Seeing you so far away
and then realizing she can’t touch bottom, she panics. She
begins swimming furiously toward you, her arms smacking
the water at sharp angles. Reaching you, she digs her fin-
gers into your arms and wraps her legs around your waist.
She breathes into your neck and gasps, “I didn’t realize I was
so deep. I didn’t realize I was so far away from you.”
“I was watching you, you were doing fine.”
“I can’t swim in the deep water.”
“Sure you can. You were.”
“I wasn’t swimming, I was floating.”
“Floating is swimming. Floating works.”
Later, in the car on the way home, she says, “I was afraid.”
“I know. What were you afraid of?”
“That I wouldn’t be able to swim back to you. Or that if
I went under, you couldn’t swim to me in time to save me.”
“But you were swimming. You floated yourself all the
way over there without even thinking about it.”
“I know. But when I started thinking about it, I couldn’t
do it anymore.”
“You were doing it. You did.”
She considers this and smiles. “I know. I know I can
swim now, because I did it without thinking about it.”
“Well, good.”
“I’m going to swim that way from now on. I like float-
ing. I like being half in and half out of the water.”
114 Cultural Studies ↔ Critical Methodologies 11(2)
“That’s nice, huh?”
“And I like not knowing where I’m going. I like not wor-
rying about where I’ll end up.”
“That’s not scary?”
She frowns. “No. Worrying about where you’ll end up is
scary. Worrying about how everything will turn out is scary.”
“How what will turn out?”
“How I’m going to turn out. What my life will be. I’ve
been thinking about it and worrying.”
You look at her in the rearview mirror. Her eyes meet
yours. You hold your breath, then dive in. “Worrying?”
She looks away and you think you’ve missed your chance,
again. She breathes in sharply and begins, again. “Worrying
people won’t like me, worrying that I won’t make friends at
my new school, worrying that I won’t fit in—that I won’t
have the right hair or clothes or backpack or know the same
stuff or anything!”
“That’s a lot to worry about.”
“Yes. And sometimes, when I’m not doing what I’m
supposed to be doing—being polite or quiet or normal—
I worry you won’t like me, either. And that you won’t want
me around anymore. And then I get angry.”
“I bet you do. But you should know that I’m not going
anywhere. I’ll be here, to help you when you need me.”
“I know that, but sometimes I get scared. I don’t want to
be scared all the time.”
“No, I don’t want you to, either. Why didn’t you tell me
all this?”
“Because you’d try to fix it. You’d tell me not to worry,
or to be angry.” She looks up, finally meeting my eyes. Her
mouth twists and tears blur her eyes. She tightens her jaw
and pushes the words out, “But I can’t stop because I am
worrying. I am angry.”
You wait. She closes her eyes and takes another sharp
breath. “Today, while I was floating in the water, I decided
I am just going to be who I am and not worry so much.”
“I think that’s very wise.”
She lowers her head, defeated. “It worked until I looked
up.”
You open your mouth, ready to speak, then stop. You
think about stories that tell what we don’t understand, sto-
ries that blink and waver on the threshold of intelligibility,
stories about all we can’t tell. The autoethnographic means
telling a story about how much we—children and parents
researchers and subjects, authors and readers—worry about
fitting in, about normal, about being accepted, loved, and
valued. The queer means telling a story about being half in
and half out of identities, subject positions, and discourses
and having the courage to be fluid in a world relentlessly
searching for stability and certainty. The reflexive means
understanding the way stories change and can change, rec-
ognizing how we hide behind and become inside the words
we speak and writing the possibilities created by our means
Downloaded from csc.sagepub.com at SEIR on September 20, 2013
and modes of address. You think about who is called by and
who responds to the I-we-you-she of these stories.
On the drive home, you think about her floating in the
water, suspended between here and there, between where she
is and where she wants to be. You look into the rearview
mirror, looking for (eye) contact. You want to tell her some-
thing that makes a difference, to tell her a story she can take
with her. You want to say that stories can be insurrectionary
acts if we make room for our (all of our) selves and their
desires, for making trouble and acknowledging the impli-
cations of doing so, for embracing the texture of knowing
without grabbing on to sure or fast answers. You want to
tell her these things, but you can’t—not fully, not clearly,
not yet. And you understand that even if you did tell her
these things, your telling them won’t make it so for her. She
will discover the power and responsibilities of telling sto-
ries for herself. You watch as she turns her head and looks
out the window. You think about her moving away from you,
into the deep water, and you let her go.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interests with res­
pect to the authorship and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research and/or
authorship of this article.
Note
1. Parts of this essay are revised and updated from Holman Jones
& Adams (2010b).
References
Adams, T. E. (2008). A review of narrative ethics. Qualitative
Inquiry, 14, 175-194.
Adams, T. E. (2009). Mothers, faggots, and witnessing (un)con-
testable experience. Cultural Studies ↔ Critical Methodolo-
gies, 1, 619-626.
Adams, T. E. (2011). Narrating the closet: An autoethnography
of same-sex attraction. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press.
Adams, T. E., & Holman Jones, S. (2008). Autoethnography is
queer. In N. K. Denzin, Y. S. Lincoln, & L. Tuhiwai Smith
(Eds.), Handbook of critical and indigenous methodologies (pp.
373-390). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.
Alexander, B. (2003). Queering queer theory again (or Queer
Theory as Drag Performance). Journal of Homosexuality, 45,
349-352.
Alexander, B. K. (2005). Performance ethnography: The reenact-
ing and inciting of culture. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln
(Eds.), Handbook of qualitative research (pp. 411-442). Thou-
sand Oaks, CA: SAGE.
Alexander, B. K. (2008). Queer(y)ing the postcolonial through
the western. In N. K. Denzin, Y. S. Lincoln & L. T. Smith
Adams and Jones 115
(Eds.), Handbook of critical and indigenous methodologies
(pp. 101-133). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.
Allison, D. (1996). Two or three things I know for sure. New York,
NY: Penguin Plume.
Anderson, L. (2006). Analytic autoethnography. Journal of Con-
temporary Ethnography, 35, 373-395.
Atkinson, P. (1997). Narrative turn or blind alley? Qualitative
Health Research, 7, 325-344.
Atkinson, P., & Delamont, S. (2010). Can the silenced speak?
A dialogue for two unvoiced actors. International Review of
Qualitative Research, 3, 11-17.
Berger, R. (2010). Out and about: Slash Fic, re-imagined texts,
and queer commentaries. In C. Pullen & M. Cooper (Eds.),
LGBT identity and online new media (pp. 173-184). New York,
NY: Routledge.
Berry, K. (2007). Embracing the catastrophe: Gay body seeks
acceptance. Qualitative Inquiry, 13, 259-281.
Boylorn, R. M. (2006). E Pluribus Unum (out of many, one).
Qualitative Inquiry, 12, 651-680.
Browne, K., & Nash, C. J. (2010). Queer methods and methodolo-
gies: Intersecting queer theories and social science research.
Burlington, VT: Ashgate.
Burlington, V. T, Butler, J. A. (1999). Gender trouble: Feminism and
the subversion of identity (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Routledge.
Butler, J. (2004). Undoing gender. New York, NY: Routledge.
Butler, J. (2005). Giving an account of oneself. New York, NY:
Fordham University Press.
Buzard, J. (2003). On auto-ethnographic authority. The Yale Jour-
nal of Criticism, 16, 61-91.
Chavéz, K. R. (2009). Exploring the defeat of Arizona’s marriage
amendment and the specter of the immigrant as queer. South-
ern Communication Journal, 74, 314-324.
Clair, R. (1998). Organizing silence: A world of possibilities.
New York: State University of New York Press.
Cobb, M. (2007). Lonely. South Atlantic Quarterly, 106, 445-457.
Corey, F. C., & Nakayama, T. K. (1997). Sextext. Text and Per-
formance Quarterly, 17, 58-68.
Defenbaugh, N. (2008). “Under erasure”: The absent ill body in
doctor—patient dialogue Qualitative Inquiry, 14, 1402-1424.
Delamont, S. (2009). The only honest thing: Autoethnography,
reflexivity and small crises in fieldwork. Ethnography and Edu-
cation, 4(1), 51-63.
Denzin, N. K. (2003). Performance ethnography: Critical peda-
gogy and the politics of culture. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.
Denzin, N. K., & Lincoln, Y. S. (2008). Introduction: Critical metho­
dologies and indigenous inquiry. In N. K. Denzin, Y. S. Lincoln
& L. T. Smith (Eds.), Handbook of critical and indigenous
metho­dologies (pp. 1-20). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.
Diversi, M., & Moreira, C. (2010). Betweener talk: Decolonizing
knowledge production, pedagogy, and praxis. Walnut Creek,
CA: Left Coast Press.
Dykins Callahan, S. B. (2008). Academic outings. Symbolic Inter-
action, 31, 351-375.
Downloaded from csc.sagepub.com at SEIR on September 20, 2013
Ellis, C. (2007). Telling secrets, revealing lives: Relational ethics
in research with intimate others. Qualitative Inquiry, 13, 3-29.
Ellis, C. (2009). Revision: Autoethnographic reflections on life
and work. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press.
Ellis, C., & Bochner, A. P. (2000). Autoethnography, personal
narrative, reflexivity. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.),
Handbook of qualitative research (2nd ed., pp. 733-768).
Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.
Foley, D. E. (2002). Critical ethnography: The reflexive turn.
International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education 15,
469-490.
Foster, E. (2008). Commitment, communication, and contending with
heteronormativity: An invitation to greater reflexivity in Interper-
sonal Research. Southern Communication Journal, 73, 84-101.
Gamson, J. (2003). Reflections on queer theory and communica-
tion. Journal of Homosexuality, 45, 385-390.
Gans, H. J. (1999). Participant observation: In the era of “ethnog-
raphy”. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 28, 540-548.
Gingrich-Philbrook, C. (2005). Autoethnography’s family values:
Easy access to compulsory experiences. Text and Performance
Quarterly, 25, 297-314.
Goodall, H. L. (2006). A need to know: The clandestine history of
a CIA family. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press.
Goodall, H. L. J. (2004). Narrative ethnography as applied commu-
nication research. Journal of Applied Communication Research,
32, 185-194.
Halberstam, J. (2005). Shame and white gay masculinity. Social
Text, 23, 219-233.
Hanmer, R. (2010). Internet fandom, queer discourse, and iden-
tities. In C. Pullen & M. Cooper (Eds.), LGBT Identity and
Online New Media (pp. 147-158). New York, NY: Routledge.
Holman Jones, S. (2005a). Autoethnography: Making the personal
political. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of
qualitative research (pp. 763-791). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.
Holman Jones, S. (2005b). (M)othering loss: Telling adoption sto-
ries, telling performativity. Text and Performance Quarterly,
25, 113-135.
Holman Jones S. (2009). Crimes against experience. Cultural
Studies ↔ Critical Methodologies, 9(1), 608-618.
Holman Jones, S. (2010). Burnt: Writing torch singers and torch
singing. Cultural Studies ↔ Critical Methodologies, 10,
283-294.
Holman Jones, S., & Adams, T. E. (2010a). Autoethnography
and queer theory: Making Possibilities. In M. Giardina &
N. K. Denzin (Eds.), Qualitative Inquiry and Human Rights
(pp. 136-157). Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press.
Holman Jones, S. & Adams, T. E. (2010b). Autoethnography is a
queer method. In K. Browne & C. J. Nash (Eds.), Queer meth-
ods and methodologies: Intersecting queer theories and social
science research (pp. 195-214). Surrey, UK: Ashgate.
Irving, D. (2008). Normalized transgressions: Legitimizing the
transsexual body as productive. Radical History Review, 100,
38-59.
116 Cultural Studies ↔ Critical Methodologies 11(2)
Jeppesen, S. (2010). Queer anarchist autonomous zones and pub-
lics: Direct action vomiting against homonormative consumer-
ism. Sexualities, 13, 463-478.
Kincheloe, J. L., & Mclaren, P. (2000). Rethinking critical the-
ory and qualitative research. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln
(Eds.), Handbook of qualitative research (pp. 279-313). Thou-
sand Oaks, CA: SAGE.
Lee, W. (2003). Kuaering queer theory: My autocritography and
a race-conscious, womanist, transnational turn. Journal of
Homosexuality, 45, 147-170.
Lorde, A. (1984). Sister outsider. Berkeley, CA: Crossing.
Madison, S. (1998). Performance, personal narratives, and the poli-
tics of possibility: The future of performance studies. In S. J.
Dailey (Ed.), The future of performance studies: Visions and
revisions (pp. 276-286). Washington, DC: National Communi-
cation Association.
Madison, D. S. (2006). The dialogic performative in critical eth-
nography. Text and Performance Quarterly, 26, 320-324.
Marvasti, A. (2006). Being Middle Eastern American: Identity
negotiation in the context of the war on terror. Symbolic Inter-
action, 28, 525-547.
McCreery, P. (2008). Gay activists appropriate the rhetoric of
child protectionism. Radical History Review, 100, 186-207.
Minge, J. M., & Zimmerman, A. L. (2009). Power, pleasure, and
play: Screwing the dildo and rescripting sexual violence. Qual-
itative Inquiry, 15, 329-349.
Moreman, S. T. (2009). Rethinking Conquergood: Toward an
unstated cultural politics. Liminalities: A Journal of Perfor-
mance Studies, 5, 0-12.
Moro, P. (2006). It takes a darn good writer: A review of The Eth-
nographic I. Symbolic Interaction, 29, 265-269.
Munoz, J. E. (1999). Disidentifications: Queers of color and the per-
formance of politics. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Myers, W. B. (2008). Straight and white: Talking with my mouth
full. Qualitative Inquiry, 14, 160-171.
Nakayama, T. K., & Corey, F. C. (2003). Nextext. Journal of
Homosexuality, 45, 319-334.
Olesen, V. (2005). Early millennial feminist qualitative research:
challenges and contours. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.),
Handbook of qualitative research (pp. 235-278). Thousand
Oaks, CA: SAGE.
Olivas, M. R. (2009). Negotiating identity while scaling the
walls of the ivory tower. International Review of Qualitative
Research, 2, 385-406.
Pelias, R. J. (2009). Pledging personal allegiance to qualitative
inquiry. International Review of Qualitative Research, 2,
351-356.
Plummer, K. (2005). Critical humanism and queer theory: Liv-
ing with the tensions. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.),
Handbook of qualitative research (pp. 357-373). Thousand
Oaks, CA: SAGE.
Pollock, D. (2006). Marking new directions in performance eth-
nography. Text and Performance Quarterly, 26, 325-329.
Downloaded from csc.sagepub.com at SEIR on September 20, 2013
Pollock, D. (2007). The performative “I.” Cultural Studies ↔
Critical Methodologies, 7, 239-255.
Poulos, C. N. (2010). Transgressions. International Review of
Qualitative Research, 3, 67-88.
Richardson, L. (2009). Tales from the crypt. International Review
of Qualitative Research, 2, 345-350.
Rosaldo, R. (1989). Culture & truth: The remaking of social anal-
ysis. Boston, MA: Beacon.
Slagle, R. A. (2007). Ferment in LGBT studies and queer theory.
Journal of Homosexuality, 52, 309-328.
Solis, S. (2007). Snow White and the Seven “Dwarfs”—Queercripped.
Hypatia, 22, 114-131.
Spry, T. (2010). Call it swing: A jazz blues of autoethnography.
Cultural Studies ↔ Critical Methodologies, 10, 271-282.
Stewart, K. (2007). Ordinary affects. Durham, NC: Duke Univer-
sity Press.
Tillmann, L. M. (2009). Body and bulimia revisited: Reflections on
“A Secret Life” Journal of Applied Communication Research,
37, 98-112.
Turner, V. (1988). Performance ethnography. In V. Turner, The
anthropology of performance (pp. 139-155). New York, NY:
Performing Arts Journal.
Visweswaran, K. (1994). Fictions of feminist ethnography. Min-
neapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Warren-Findlow, J. (2009). Inside the circus: Examining the expe-
rience of breast cancer as a research, teacher, and feminist.
International Review of Qualitative Research, 2, 313-328.
Wilchins, R. (2004). Queer theory, gender theory. Los Angeles,
CA: Alyson.
Wyatt, J. (2010). What kind of mourning? Autoethnographic frag-
ments. International Review of Qualitative Research, 2, 499-512.
Yep, G. A., & Elia, J. P. (2007). Queering/Quaring blackness in
Noah’s Arc. In T. Peele (Ed.), Queer popular culture: Litera-
ture, media, film, and television (pp. 27-40). New York, NY:
Palgrave Macmillan.
Bios
Tony E. Adams is an assistant professor in the Department of
Communication, Media and Theatre at Northeastern Illinois
University. He studies and teaches about interpersonal and family
communication, qualitative research, communication theory, and
sex, gender, and sexuality. His work has been published in Qualita-
tive Inquiry, Soundings, Cultural Studies ↔ Critical Methodologies,
Symbolic Interaction. He is the also the author of Narrating the
Closet: An Autoethnography of Same-Sex Attraction (2011).
Stacy Holman Jones is an associate professor in the Department
of Communication at the University of South Florida. She has
published work on the intersections of feminism, writing, perfor-
mance, and qualitative methods in Qualitative Inquiry, Cultural
Studies ↔ Critical Methodologies, and Text and Performance
Quarterly. She is the author of Torch Singing: Performing Resis-
tance and Desire from Billie Holiday to Edith Piaf (2007).