How We Do the Work Is the Work: Building an Intersectional Queer Praxis for Critical Feminist Scholarship

Abstract

In this reflection (which is a revised version of a recent keynote address), I invite feminist social work scholars to consider what it might look like to build our scholarship through an intersectional queer praxis. I posit that as critical feminist scholars, it is important that we consider not only the topics we study but also how we do our work. Specifically, I propose an intersectional queer praxis that brings together key tenets of Slow scholarship with queer lived experiences and critical theoretical lens(es) that assert that queer is destabilizing of dominant ideologies and a challenge to normative ways of being. I discuss four interrelated dimensions of intersectional queer praxis that draw upon Slow scholarship and elements of queer life: (1) reimagining time; (2) centering relationships, community care, and collaboration; (3) embracing complexity and disrupting binaries; and (4) attention to embodiment and emotion. I argue that employing this kind of intersectional queer praxis challenges dominant approaches to academic knowledge production and carries with it new possibilities and creative imaginings for how we do our work. This talk is an invitation to think collectively, to reflect, and to raise questions for us as social work scholars as we continue to build a more robust practice of critical feminist scholarship.