Centering Queer Latinx/a/o Experiences and Knowledge: Guidelines for using Jotería Studies in Higher Education Qualitative Research

Abstract

The landscape of higher education research and practice on Queers of Color (QoC) is increasingly offering possibilities of research paradigms and frameworks that best articulate and capture the unique experiences of race, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality. And, as research on queer Latinx/a/o people in higher education increases, researchers and scholars need to utilize frameworks that attend to this community. Notably, Jotería Studies is a framework that centers the material realities of queer Latinx/a/o people (Hames-García, 2014). Jotería Studies as a research paradigm shifts the possibilities to intentionally speak to the experiences of the queer Latinx/a/o community. Therefore, the purpose of this manuscript is to offer guidelines for qualitative researchers to use Jotería Studies to study topics of higher education. Consequently, using these guidelines assist in examining the ways in which queer Latinx/a/o people are structurally marginalized in ways that speak to the intersections of race, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality.