ABOUT
Queering Futures Research Studio
values, significance, purpose, founder/director Jess Westbrook
Values
Values can mean beliefs and judgments that guide behaviors and shape the emergence of value systems. Values can be simple and clear. Values can be emergent and messy.
Diversity is a value. Diversity is not passive. It takes effort and work. Sara Ahmed (2022), scholar and self-described feminist killjoy, wrote, “We write ourselves into existence. We write, in company. And we write back against a world that in one way, or another makes it hard for us to exist on our own terms” (para. 14).
Inclusion is a value. Inclusion is not passive. It takes effort and work. The statement, “what gets counted, counts,” is frequently attributed to Joni Seager, feminist geographer. Data collection and quantification impacts perceptions, policies, and power. Research agendas often exclude certain groups of people. Inclusive data practices intentionally collect data about and with underrepresented groups (Browne, 2008; Guyan, 2022; Kilgo, 2021; Ruberg & Ruelos, 2020).
Caring is a value. Caring is not passive. It takes effort and work. In her article, “Un-designing Apathy: Designs for Systems of Caring,” Dori Tunstall (2014) design anthropologist asked, “How does design translate the value of caring into tangible social experiences?” (p. 1).
Accountability is a value. Accountability is not passive. It takes effort and work. In her essay, “Antisocial Coding: My Year at GitHub,” Coraline Ada Ehmke, engineer, open-source advocate, and ethicist stated, “Values that are expressed but that don't change behavior are not really values, they are lies that you tell yourself” (Ehmke, 2017, para. 49).
Queering Futures Research Studio is committed to diversity, inclusion, caring, and accountability, and continuously integrates these values in its approaches and activities.
Significance
There are many types of significance. Social significance is a type of significance that recognizes the importance of problem finding (Runco & Nemiro, 1994), critical inquiry, research context, and/or the populations under study. Social significance acknowledges and considers potential social impact.
Identity is socially significant. Queer presence is growing. Whatever the reason, there is a shift in measurable population demographics. A 2021 Gallup telephone poll of 12,416 adults in 2021 found that 20.8% of Generation Z identify as LGBTQ. This can be compared to 10.5% of millennials, 4.2% of Generation X, 2.6% of baby boomers, and .8% of traditionalists (Doherty, 2022; Jones, 2022).
Data is socially significant. The manner in which data is collected and analyzed is socially significant. Queer data is missing. This is a huge gap. Gathering meaningful data for analysis is a key aspect of producing new knowledge. If data is missing, either through bad design, the neglect or disregard of people, or through aggregation, this is erasure or exclusion by design. Neglect by design, or exclusionary practices, can be found throughout the histories of research involving people. While invisibility may keep people safe in some situations, in social research invisibility can lead to distortion, misunderstanding, and unintended consequences.
Backlash is significant. At this time in U.S. history there is a surge fear, hate, and big government overreach that undermines body autonomy, mental health, and safety, and legalizes discrimination and human-rights violations.
Queering Futures Research Studio prioritizes social significance in its approaches and activities.
Purpose
Queer is an adjective, a noun, and a verb (OED, Queer).
Queer is different and strange. Queer rejects normativity and status quo. Queer is fluid and unruly. It connects with creativity and joyful liberation. It includes but is certainly not limited to existing understandings of sexuality and gender.
Queer is identity and community. Queer is, “the self that is at odds with everything around it and has to invent and create and find a place to speak and to thrive and to live.” (bell hooks, 2014, as cited by Barton, 2023, p.222).
Queer is complex and powerful.
Queering Futures Research Studio chooses the verb form of Queer, Queering – because it acts, because it has, “political and methodological power… as a stance, an approach, and a process” (Jobst & Stead, 2023 p. Introduction). 'Queering’ questions, unlearns, disrupts, and transforms approaches, expectations, and realities.
Jess Westbrook
Jess Parris Westbrook (they/them, T1D, MFA, PhD) is a nonlinear, genderQueer, disabled, postnormal social researcher and critical designer based in Chicago, IL, U.S.
Building on two decades of (new) media art/design studio accomplishments, they (re)oriented in the social sciences (2017–2022), expanded their research toolkits, and launched the Queering Futures Research Studio in 2022 (while completing their PhD dissertation).
Westbrook, J. P. (2024).Queering Futures with Data-driven Speculation: The Design of an Expanded Mixed Methods Research Framework Integrating Quantitative, Qualitative, and Practice-based Modes (Order No. 31298559). Available from Dissertations & Theses @ DePaul University; ProQuest Central; ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global; Publicly Available Content Database. (3058416208). https://www.proquest.com/dissertations-theses/queering-futures-with-data-driven-speculation/docview/3058416208/se-2
social: Bluesky
social: LinkedIn
workplace: faculty bio
My Positionality/Philosophy
A researcher is present. I have a positionality. This is my way of being. A positionality statement is authored by a researcher and serves as a mechanism for both self-reflection and disclosure. While a positionality statement, like a person, is not necessarily a static entity, it is a means to capture and describe current biases, preferences, perceptions, inclinations, tendencies, insider/outsider relationships, and advantages and disadvantages a researcher may have in a given situation. My positionality moves from the physiological, as in my most basic needs, to the psychological and social. It involves my intersecting personal contexts, my disabled body, my Queer mind, and my creative ways. While these elements are described in pieces, in actuality they are impossibly (and fantastically) intertwined.
A researcher is present. I have a philosophy. This is my way of thinking. A philosophy statement is authored by a researcher and serves as a mechanism for both self-reflection and disclosure. While a philosophy statement, like perception, is not necessarily a static entity, it is a means to capture and describe current systems of thought as they relate to impressions of ontology (realities) and epistemology (knowledge). My ontology aligns with complexity. I am attracted to emergent unknowns, chaos, novelty, and surprises. Complexity is a messy, creative, playful, and hopeful way of navigating reality. My epistemology aligns with Transdisciplinarity. I don’t see/feel boundaries between ideas and systems; there are always relationships and connections. As a researcher and practitioner, I am not situated within any domain or discipline. I wander and transgress. Transdisciplinarity is a messy, creative, playful, and hopeful way of navigating knowledge. Like the elements in my positionality, the elements in my philosophy are impossibly (and fantastically) intertwined.
My Origins/Ancestors
(Left) Ansley Westbrook, my grandfather (born in Cunningham, TX), was an electrical engineer recruited by the Manhattan Project then Westinghouse. A focused problem-solver, he traveled the world consulting on power plants and power grids.
(Right) Parris Westbrook, my father (born in Pittsburgh, PA), was an entrepreneur and business strategist involved in ventures spanning music labels, nightclubs, discos, restaurants, arcades, and entertainment complexes — from Studio 54 to the 1982 World's Fair and the entire 2001 VIP disco and nightclub franchise system. He helped people forget and celebrate being alive. He moved us from Pittsburgh, PA to Orlando, FL, where I grew up immersed in the business of simulacra, simulation, and hyperreality, and learned about cognitive dissonance and coping mechanisms.