Queer in the fieldwork

Queer agrarian studies have documented non-binary gender dynamics across farming practices and relations. However, what happens when the researcher becomes the source of queerness in agrarian/rural spaces? 

This auto-ethonographic project examines my seven-year ethnographic journey among peasant and Indigenous communities in Peru while coming out as lesbian and later as trans non-binary. Acute contradictions arose when my gender transition and more plentiful sense of self clashed with my engagement in potentially more hierarchical heteropatriarchal societies. Drawing on Leibing & McLean's (2007) concept of the "shadow"—the unspoken background text between researcher and respondent situated at the frontier of formal ethnography and personal life—I analyze the dialectic between concealing and displaying my gender identity during fieldwork. 

A manuscript is being developed with the support of Deborah Martin (Clark University) for publication in a special issue on queer agrarian studies, which will feature contributions from several queer scholars.