‘After‐queer’ tendencies in queer research

Abstract

Our aim in this introduction is neither to enunciate an ‘after‐queer’ vision nor to denounce queer theory. In thinking through an ‘after‐queer’, we identify and seek to account for particular habits of thought that are often associated with queer research in education and queer research about young people. We trace certain traditions that frame queer research and consider the proper subjects, aims, and locations of such research projects. We contend that these habits of thought require further interrogation because they are intrinsic to researchers’ visions of their own research and to the constitution of fields of research in the broader research imagination. Queer research in education is often conducted in schools and its focus is often young people and their teachers, taking abjection and amelioration as points of departure. In this special issue, we hope to provoke different sorts of imaginings about the accomplishments, problematics, and futures of queer research.