Methodology, Criticism, and Representation in Narrating the Closet

This set of vocabulary flashcards covers the methodological frameworks, interview techniques, and critical perspectives involved in the autoethnographic study of the closet, coming out, and same-sex attraction.

Autoethnography

A research method that investigates cultural manifestations and interactional dynamics by valuing personal experience, striving for thick descriptions, and utilizing storytelling as a mode of representation.

Ethnography

A study where the researcher represents a culture through writing thick descriptions to make strange aspects familiar for both insiders (cultural members) and outsiders (cultural strangers).

Thick descriptions

Detailed accounts of cultural happenings, a concept attributed to Geertz (1973), used by researchers to make sense of cultural experiences.

Autobiography

A genre of writing where a person retrospectively records episodes from their life, relying on memory, interviews, and texts such as photographs and journals.

Narrative truth

A perspective in autoethnography where truth is considered contextual, contested, and complicated rather than purely historical.

Interactive interviews

Collaborative endeavors between researchers and participants, often friends or acquaintances, aimed at probing sensitive topics through multiple sessions within an emerging relationship.

Life story interviews

A method modeled by Bruner (1986) where participants record their life stories to provide insight into how they make sense of their lived experiences through narrative.

Initial coding

A recursive process identified by Charmaz (1983) where themes are discerned inductively across data sources by identifying repeated words, phrases, and storylines.

Layered account

A writing technique created by Ronai (1995, 1996) that uses a collage of texts, including personal experiences and extant research, to represent findings.

Showing

A writing technique that brings readers into the scene to evocatively experience an experience, often through the use of conversation.

Telling

A descriptive writing style that positions readers at a distance, providing an overview of a situation rather than an evocative, sensuous engagement.

Narrative privilege

The safety, ability, and desire to navigate the conventional and political requirements necessary to write and publish a life story.

Eurocentric understanding of sexuality

A perspective assuming that any person who engages in an intimate same-sex act must identify with labels such as lesbian, gay, bisexual, and/or queer.

Reparative therapy

A form of therapy intended to change or correct a person's same-sex attraction.

Post-closet world

A concept, as noted by Hutson (2010), suggesting that the closet has lessened in significance and is no longer a primary metaphorical space for persons with same-sex attraction.