Different Sameness: Queer Autoethnography and Coalition Politics

Abstract

As a method, we use autoethnography to explore coalition politics from our positions in academia. We use autoethnography to examine how similar identity categories presume sameness and can lead to conflict within institutions. This autoethnography looks at how coalitional politics were learned, as well as how coalitional politics are practiced within the institutional spaces of the university and academic discipline. In particular, we examine how we have experienced conflict and competition, as well as ways that we continue to build coalitional spaces. Through this, we place autoethnography as an explicitly political methodology.