New Book Co-Edited by Professor Alvarez-Hernandez Centers Gender and Sexuality in Qualitative Research
For gender and sexually marginalized people, and especially people of color, traditional research methods have not always made room for the full complexity of their identities, or for the people living those experiences to shape how their stories are studied and told. A new book aims to change that.
“Critical Qualitative Methodologies in Gender and Sexuality: Key Concepts,” published by Routledge, was co-edited by Luis Alvarez-Hernandez, an assistant professor at Boston University School of Social Work, alongside Drs. Maureen A. Flint, Janie Copple, Joseph D. Sweet, and Whitney Toledo, a group of qualitative researchers known for pushing the boundaries of how social science is conducted and who it serves.
Rethinking How Social Work Research is Conducted
At its core, the book asks a deceptively simple question: Whose stories get told, and how?
Organized into three sections, the book first re-envisions foundational concepts in gender and sexuality research, then explores methods grounded in collaboration and community partnership, and finally examines how art and contemplative practices can open new pathways to understanding identity and experiences.
Throughout, contributors emphasize that who a researcher is, and how they position themselves in relation to their subject, shapes the research itself. This perspective is not only present in the book’s content. The editors grounded the book on core values that highlighted the experiences of emerging scholars, engaged in critical conversations, redefined the foundations of “truth, and generated change through qualitative methodologies.
A BUSSW Perspective on Community-Engaged Research
Alvarez-Hernandez’s contribution centers on his expertise in critical qualitative research with LGBTQ+ communities of color and immigrants, along with methodologies rooted in co-construction, participation, and community engagement-approaches that treat research participants as partners and experts rather than subjects.
That perspective reflects values central to social work practice at BUSSW: centering the people most affected by research, building trust before extracting knowledge, and recognizing that rigor and reciprocity are not in conflict.
In the book, Alvarez-Hernandez writes about the stakes of this work directly. “In a scientific world fixed on colonized notions of the ‘truth,’ I am reminded of the importance of generating theories that center gender, sexuality, race, and culture,” he writes. “Qualitative research often affords us the opportunity to record these theories for those needing them now and those coming behind us.”
Sharing New Research Methodologies with Colleagues
The book’s editorial team plans to bring the conversation beyond the page. Among other engagements, the group plans to present the collection at the University of Georgia Qualitative Research Program’s Qualitative Lab speaker series, continuing to build community around the methodologies the book describes. Professor Alvarez-Hernandez is an alum of the internationally recognized University of Georgia Qualitative Research Program.
For Alvarez-Hernandez and his co-editors, the project is as much an invitation as it is a publication, one meant to equip scholars at every stage of their careers with tools to study gender and sexuality more ethically, and more honestly.
Learn more about Professor Alvarez-Hernandez