Unveiling motivations and keeping what's sacred: Engaging reflexivity in a research program on diverse romantic relationships

Abstract

Guided by Allen's (2023) call for developing a critical consciousness, this paper applies feminist reflexive practice to uncover the personal curiosities and contradictions that have motivated my research program on diverse romantic relationships. Specifically, I examine faith, race, and heterosexism as the root of an unresolved collision of privilege and oppression that undergird my burgeoning research program. I begin by reviewing my own positionality before sharing how my personal experiences with family and identity collided with my profession. Finally, I discuss how the personal and professional have motivated praxis, or the leveraging of research as a pathway toward social justice. In doing so, I unveil how personal motivations and complacency in oppression shaped the development of my research program in hopes of spurring innovative theorizing and empirical research rooted in the authenticity of lived experiences.