Telling Stories: Reflexivity, Queer

Theory, and Autoethnography

Cultural Studies l Critical Methodologies

11(2) 108116
2011 SAGE Publications
Reprints and permission: http://www.
sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav
DOI: 10.1177/1532708611401329
http://csc.sagepub.com

Tony E. Adams1 and Stacy Holman Jones2

Abstract
This essay focuses on intersections of reflexivity as both an orientation to research and a writing practice that brings
together the method of autoethnography and the paradigm of queer theory. Taking seriously autoethnographys and queer
theorys commitments to uncertain, fluid, and becoming subjectivities, multiple forms of knowledge and representations,
and research as an agent of change, we write a series of reflexively queer personal texts. These texts ask usas writers
and readers in a community of scholarsto question our desire to name and claim stories and to embrace the gifts and
challenges of open texts and the importance of reflexivity as we test the limits of knowledge and certainty.
Keywords
reflexivity, autoethnography, queer theory

(Re)turningi
May 2007: You have the whole day to work, to write together.
You are working on a handbook chapter that traces the connections and possibilities of writing autoethnography and
queer theory together (Adams & Holman Jones, 2008). Until
today you have been writing alone, sending drafts to each
other through email, each inbox arrival a gift. You are worried
that getting together will spoil the momentum and excitement of your exchange. Thankfully and perhaps inevitably,
you are wrong. The day flies, as do your ideas, your fingers
floating on the keys. You finish the essay and send it off,
feeling grateful for your collaboration and your work. A few
months later, you are invited to share your essay at a conference and to recast it for a second and a then a third edited
collection (Holman Jones & Adams, 2010a, 2010b). Each
time you return to this work, you reconsider, revise, restructure, and write something new. Circling back, it is difficult
to know where to start. And then an idea or an experience
pulls you into the river of story, into a beginning, again, dense
with potential (Stewart, 2007, p. 129). This circling, pulling, and beginning again is reflexive in its movementturning
back on and to language, thought, self, culture, and power;
writing deja vu prose that makes the familiar hum with
newness; sketching how certain identities, situations, and cultural facts are made to appear natural and normal (Rosaldo,
1989, p. 39); and giving back a measured, contingent, openended story, again and again (Foley, 2002).
July 2010: We step again into the river of this essay, a
reflexive return to the hold that autoethnography and queer

theory have on each other and on us. If, as Foley (2002)

suggests, we can stop the flow of reflexivity long enough to
catch a glimpse of its movement, we can make out many
forms of and approaches to (re)turning: the confessional/
autobiographical embrace of subjectivity, contingency, and
connection; the feminist insistence on historicized, strategic,
politicized, and thoroughly lived standpoints; a commitment
to theorizing how our work constitutes and traffics in knowledge production; and a deconstructive skepticism about the
workings of reality, power, identity, and experience. A practice of holding seemingly contradictory ways of knowing in
tension (Foley, 2002, p. 477), reflexivity is the meansthe
action, the movement, the performanceby which we engage
a personal and queer scholarship. (Re)turning, we revisit,
shift, and refigure earlier iterations of our queer work, showing what it means to be reflexively queer, attending to the
ethics of being reflexively queer within personal texts, and
tracing the importance of using reflexively queer autoethnographic work for socially just means and ends. We (re)turn
to questions of clarity and transparency, to the desire to
name and claim storiesidentifying who and what theyre
about, who can tell them and for what purposes, and what
1

Northeastern Illinois University, Chicago

University of South Florida, Tampa

Corresponding Author:
Tony E. Adams, PhD, Assistant Professor Department of
Communication, Media & Theatre, Northeastern Illinois University,
5500 N. St. Louis Ave., FA 240 Chicago, Illinois 60625
Email: tony.e.adams@gmail.com

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Adams and Jones

they know and might do in the world. We circle back to the
workings of ambiguity, the gifts and challenges of open
texts, and the importance of reflexivity as we test the limits
of knowledge and certainty (Gingrich-Philbrook, 2005;
Madison, 2006; Pollock, 2006). We write to leave room for
interpretation, for misunderstandings, for not knowing. We
write to leave things unfinished and unanswered (Holman
Jones & Adams, 2010b, p. 211).

Telling Stories You Cant Tell

July 2010: You thought the cruise would be relaxing, a space
for fun away from meetings and summer camps, schedules,
and obligations. And it is relaxing, it is fun. But the swimming and sun have left you exhausted and her buzzing with
energy. Your third, weary request that she pick up her wet
bathing suit, which is soaking the rug next to the bed, sends
herand youover the edge. She refuses. You retaliate
with a punishment that does not match the crime: she must
hand over her spending money until she can learn to listen
and to comply with your requests. She bursts into tears. She
says you are being unfair, mean. She begs you to reconsider.
You sit, silently absorbing her words, sorry you overreacted
but afraid to reverse your decision until she makes an effort.
She becomes more and more upset. You stay still and silent.
She crouches down, draws her hands into fists, and seethes.
This outburst surprises you. You ask why she is so angry
now and for the past few weeks. She looks hard at you and
stammers, Ill tell you. But it will ruin everything.
Your heart pounds in your ears. You begin telling yourself the stories of your worst fears. Has something happened?
Has somethingor someonehurt her? You take a deep
breath and say, Please. You can talk to me. Tell me. Whatever it is, itll be okay. Please.
Youll be upset.
No, I wont, I promise. Something is bothering you.
You need to tell me so I can help. Please.
She looks away. Her mouth opens and then shuts. Shes
changed her mind. Its just . . . unfair. I earned that money
and you shouldnt be able to take it from me. Your chance
to hear her tell her story, like so many other chances over the
last monthhas vanished.
Later, you sit at the small desk in your cabin writing,
wondering where this leads, what it saysabout her, about
you, about your relationship, about what you can or should
do to help her, about the power and possibility of telling
stories. You wonder about stories that feel too powerful
to tell. And you wonder what it all means for writing, for
scholarship and criticism, for collected essays on the call
(and the pushing and the struggle) of ethnographic reflexivity. For as long as you can remember, you have told and
written stories. You use stories to reflect on, ask questions
about, and imagine change from inside the politically and

personally problematic worlds of everyday life (Denzin,

2003, p. 236). You tell these stories because you believe
they do something in the world to create a little knowledge, a little humanity, a little room to live and move in and
around the constraints and heartbreaks of culture and categories, identities and ideologies. You wonder whether this
is what your stories do or should do. You wonder whether
the people in your stories recognize and admire themselves,
whether they are angry or embarrassed that your words
about them are in the world. Sometimes you are sure about
your answers to these questions and sometimes you dont
know.
And what of the stories we are not ready or willing to
tell? What of the stories that blink and waver on the threshold of thought, speech, and intelligibility? Remember, Behind
the story I tell is the one I dont. Behind the story you hear
is the one I wish I could make you hear (Allison, 1996,
p. 39). What of the stories we want to tell because they are
so important and enraging and courageous and hopeful but
dont because they arent oursaloneto tell? Does not
telling these stories, or telling a story about all we cant tell,
do something in the world? Perhaps telling the story of the
story you cant tell points to the inchoate but very real
sense of the sensibilities, socialities, and ways of attending
to things that give events their significance . . . [and] gestures not toward the clarity of answers but toward the texture
of knowing (Stewart, 2007, p. 129). Perhaps telling such
stories is necessary precisely because they are not sanctioned
and, therefore, considered legitimate stories worthy of our
attention and respect (Clair, 1998, p. 74). And perhaps this
is what a reflexively queer autoethnography adds up to, just
stories, texts that tell and dont tell about bodies literally
affecting one another: human bodies, discursive bodies,
bodies of thought (Stewart, 2007, p. 128). Recent stories
of bodies literally affecting one another tell and dont tell
about swinging, penetration, catastrophe, heresy, and closets,
to name just a few (Adams, 2011; Berry, 2007; Holman
Jones, 2009; Minge & Zimmerman, 2009; Spry, 2010).
Rather than a mirror providing a self-affirming reflection,
we see a reflexivity in autoethnography and queer theory
that works through and around the fulcrum and tension of
a hinge. The hinge is an instrument of transitivity and its
movement is inspired and linked, acting and acted upon,
turning back on itself and moving forward. The hinge asks
us to align the seemingly divided perspectives of autoethnography with queer theory so that we can tell and untell stories
that matter. We are interested in what can happen when we
hinge experience and analysis, ambiguity and clarity, dialogue and debate, accessibility and academic activism, just
stories and high theory. We are not after a homogenizing
blend or mechanistic prioritizing of concerns. Rather, we
want to try to remap the terrain of autoethnography, queer
theory, and reflexivity without removing the fences that

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110
make good neighbors (Alexander, 2003, p. 352). We want
to ask what autoethnography, queer theory, and reflexivity
should do to, for, and in research and in our efforts to honor
the sanctity of life and human dignity. We want to ask questions and listen for responses that do not read as answers, but
rather call up the texture of knowing and the pleasures of
an impulse toward potentiality (Stewart, 2007, p. 128).
Throughout this essay, we use I and we, you and
her to tell our stories. We use these terms because they
combine us, as authors and readers, into a shared experience.
My experienceour experiencecould be and could reframe
your experience. My experienceour experiencecould
politicize your experience and could motivate and mobilize
you, and us, to action. My experienceour experience
could inspire you to return to your own stories, asking again
and again what they tell and what they leave out. Our I is
fashioned after Pollocks (2007, p. 246) performative I,
and away from a first-person scholarly narrator who is selfreferential but unavailable to criticism or revisionto being
reflexively cultural and reflexively queer. Our performative
I is made real through the performance of writing (p. 247),
particularly in performances that link autoethnography,
queer theory, and reflexivity. Our I hinges usTony and
Stacyto you, our readers and we, a community of
scholars ready to write ourselves into new ways of being
and becoming. We begin by taking a kind of relational inventory, exploring what commitments join and hold apart the
methods, paradigms, and practices of autoethnography, queer
theory, and reflexivity.

Inventory
July 2010: You begin to think about the connections and
divergences between autoethnography, queer theory, and
reflexivity. Not wanting to make regulative, definitive, or
finite claims, you struggle with how to write the spark, potential, and possibility of linking method, paradigm, and practice.
You think about the relationships and words start to flow.
One way to assess the goodnessof fit, purpose, and
goalsof a relationship is to think about commitment. Commitment is both personal and political; it is an investment in
the now that anticipates a future based on common goals and
cooperation (Foster, 2008, pp. 84-85). Commitment can
also be an unquestioned value that elides difference and
denies nonnormative identities and lives (Foster, 2008).
Autoethnographya method that uses personal experience with a culture and/or a cultural identity to make unfamiliar
characteristics of the culture and/or identity familiar for
insiders and outsidersand queer theorya dynamic and
shifting theoretical paradigm that developed in response to
a normalizing of heterosexuality and from a desire to disrupt
insidious social conventionsshare cooperative ideological
commitments. These commitments come together to enact,

revise, and refine reflexive research practices: Autoethnography, as a research method, tries to disrupt traditional and
dominant ideas about research, particularly what research is
and how research should be done (Diversi & Moreira, 2010;
Ellis, 2009; Ellis & Bochner, 2000; Richardson, 2009). Queer
theory advocates a similar sensibility in its attempt to disrupt
traditional and dominant ideas about what passes as normal
in a variety of contexts (Alexander, 2008; Browne & Nash,
2010; Cobb, 2007; Jeppesen, 2010; Solis, 2007). The impulse
to disrupt traditional and dominant ideas about research is
a hallmark of deconstructionist approaches to reflexivity
(Denzin, 2003; Foley, 2002; Visweswaran, 1994).
Queer theorists (re)appropriate extant research, language,
texts, practices, and beliefs in novel and innovative ways
(Alexander, 2008; Berger, 2010; Browne & Nash, 2010;
McCreery, 2008; Yep & Elia, 2007). Similarly, autoethnographers tell and recast personal experience in novel and
innovative ways, simultaneously critiquing and filling gaps
in existing scholarship (Boylorn, 2006; Defenbaugh, 2008;
Tillmann, 2009; Warren-Findlow, 2009). This commitment
to novelty and innovation is a key component of confessional, performative, and standpoint approaches to reflexivity
(Alexander, 2005; Foley, 2002; Olesen, 2005; Olivas, 2009).
Autoethnographers treat identities and experiences as
uncertain, fluid, open to interpretation, and able to be revised
(Adams, 2009; Ellis, 2009; Goodall, 2006; Holman Jones
2010; Wyatt, 2010). Queer theorists share this sentiment by
working against the fixity and firmness, certainty and closure,
stability and rigid categorization of identities and experiences (Butler, 2004; Burlington & Butler, 1999; Hanmer,
2010; Plummer, 2005). The instability of identities and experiences, for researchers and subjects and authors and readers,
is also demonstrated by critical approaches to reflexivity
(Foley 2002; Kincheloe & McLaren, 2000; Olivas, 2009;
Visweswaran 1994).
Queer theorists advocate for humane, equitable change
and conceive of ways research, texts, and bodies can serve
as sites of ideological and discursive trouble (Burlington
& Butler, 1999; Chavz, 2009; Jeppesen, 2010; Irving,
2008; Munoz 1999; Solis, 2007). Many autoethnographers
also try to make ideological and discursive trouble while
also creating humane and equitable ways of living (Berry,
2007; Dykins Callahan, 2008; Minge & Zimmerman, 2009;
Myers, 2008). Making ideological and discursive trouble is
the heart of a critically reflexive approach to research, an
approach in which a researcher acts as an agent of change
(Denzin, 2003, p. 237; see also Denzin & Lincoln, 2008;
Kincheloe & McLaren, 2000; Plummer, 2005; Slagle, 2007).
Autoethnography and queer theory also share interrelated
criticisms as well as complementary responses to these
criticisms. These critiques and responses stem from autoethnographys and queer theorys commitment to reflexivity:
Queer theory is criticized for being too theoretical and

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Adams and Jones

impractical (Burlington & Butler, 1999; Halberstam, 2005)
yet praised for being able to make movement and motivate
political action (Jeppesen, 2010; Gamson, 2003; Wilchins
2004). Autoethnography is criticized for being atheoretical
(Atkinson, 1997) and poorly written (Gingrich-Philbrook,
2005; Moro, 2006) yet praised for being applicable to lived
realities (Goodall, 2004; Tillmann, 2009). Various approaches to reflexivity have also been criticized for placing too
much or too little emphasis on making theoretical claims as
well as an (in)ability to change lived experience (Denzin
2003). However, the goals of making theory and motivating
change work best when held in productive, recursive tension
(Foley, 2002).
Autoethnography is criticized for being narcissistic, selfindulgent, simplistic, and just too personal (Anderson, 2006;
Atkinson & Delamont, 2010; Buzard, 2003; Delamont, 2009;
Gans, 1999; Madison, 2006). Queer theory is criticized for
being too dense and difficult, and not personal enough
(Burlington & Butler, 1999; Halberstam, 2005). Autoethnographers (e.g., Adams, 2009; Boylorn, 2006; Ellis, 2009;
Holman Jones, 2005a; Pelias, 2009) and queer theorists
(Butler, 2004; Corey & Nakayama, 1997; Nakayama &
Corey, 2003) have replied by emphasizing the reciprocity
of the I and the we, the reciprocity of story and theory,
the reciprocity of the personal and political. Such reciprocity
characterizes the use and valuing of reflexivity in research
(Alexander, 2005; Foley, 2002; Turner, 1988).
Queer theory is sometimes considered elitist, Western,
colonialist, and White (Alexander, 2008; Halberstam, 2005;
Lee, 2003; Yep & Elia, 2007). Autoethnography is sometimes considered colonialist and solipsistic, patriarchal,
and available only to the tenured without fear of reprisal
(Anderson, 2006; Buzard, 2003; Gingrich-Philbrook, 2005;
Poulos, 2010). Queer theorists have responded by refiguring queer identities and queer theory to signal, signify, and
sound the concerns of diverse subjects and subjectivities on
questions of race, ethnicity, class, sex, desire, gender, and ability (Alexander, 2008; Lee, 2003; Moreman, 2009; Solis, 2007;
Yep & Elia, 2007). Autoethnographers have responded by
using various media to represent findings (Adams, 2008);
valuing embodiment, performance, and alternative ways
of knowing (Denzin, 2003; Holman Jones, 2005b, 2009);
embracing the cultural standpoints a researcher embodies
(Boylorn, 2006; Diversi & Moreira, 2010; Marvasti, 2006);
and respecting the relationships a researcher has with those
she or he studiesno longer can a researcher enter a setting,
mine others for data, and leave without empathetically acknowledging these others (Ellis, 2007). A commitment to
diversityof media and knowledges, subjects and subjectivities, standpoints and relationshipsforegrounds the use
and importance of critical reflexivity (Alexander, 2005; Butler,
2005; Plummer, 2005; Olivas, 2009). Autoethnography,

queer theory, and reflexivity share commitments that are

personal and political, tense and complicated, disruptive
and open-to-revision, humane and ethical. By interrogating
the method, paradigm, and practice, we discern and document the ways selves enactlivecultures as well as how
cultures live in and through selves, even when they can never
be fully known (Butler, 2005; Pelias, 2009). We also work
to find ways selves can be used physically and discursively
to disrupt insidious cultural practices and norms, all the while
making an attempt to acknowledgethough not necessarily
accommodatethe ways in which others are implicated by
the self and the desire to create cultural trouble and change.
Such interrogation involves a rigorous call for reflexivity
to reflect not only on the self, how the self works, and how
others are implicated by the self and the selfs desires, but
also on how we representin writing, performance, film,
and so onthe process and challenges of reflection. It
means making ourselves vulnerable to critique, by risking
livingin language and in lifethe terms we keep in
question by embodying their possibilities without fixing
or determining their movements (Madison, 1998; see also
Alexander, 2005; Holman Jones, 2005a). For us, Tony and
Stacy, it means creating these possibilities by (re)turning,
again and again, to stories.

Possibility: Bearing Witness

Interrogating autoethnography, queer theory, and reflexivity
means conversing about ways that weas teachers, writers,
researchers, activists, humanstry to document, ease or
eliminate, and bear witness to harmful social practices,
occasions of relational violence, and the trials and tribulations of (desiring) normalcy. For instance, soon after we
share autoethnographies in the classes we teach, we often
get students who come to our office to share their stories of
lesbian, gay, bisexual, and queer experience as well as their
fears of research. Im not out to anyone, one says; My
parents disowned me, says another. Your work gave me
permission to do my research and my writing my way, one
says; I am afraid of making myself vulnerable in my research as a young scholarbefore getting a job, before
tenurebut your work helps me see how I can take risks
without being afraid, says another.
The autoethnographic means sharing politicized, practical, and cultural stories that resonate with others and
motivating these others to share theirs; bearing witness,
together, to possibilities wrought in telling. The queer means
making conversations about harmful situations go, working
to improve the world one person, family, classroom, conference, and essay at a time. The reflexive means listening
to and for the silences and stories we cant tellnot fully,
not clearly, not yet; returning, again and again, to the river

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of story accepting what you can never fully, never unquestionably know.

Possibility: Making
Change, Letting Go
May 2010: I wish youd come see me more, she says. Its
only a three-hour drive.
I do my best, you say. I saw you last week. Im overwhelmed right now. And it is the end of the semester.
A lie. Youre not in any mood to see her. Around her,
you feel beat up, hurt, and exhausted. Around her, you feel
like you cant escape.
You make time to go to conferences, but dont make
time for me, she says.
It is important for my research and career to go to conferences, you respond.
So Im not important to you?
Why dont you visit me? you ask. Its only a threehour drive.
I feel like you dont want me to visit, she says.
You think: Maybe I give off I dont want you to visit
vibes. I am rarely ever in a mood to see her. Around her,
I feel beat up, hurt, and exhausted.
You plan a visit one weekend. On Friday morning, the
day before, you become sick and are admitted to the hospital. You are not released until Saturday night. Needless to
say, the visit is cancelled.
I knew you wouldnt come see me, she says.
Im sorry, but I didnt know Id get sick, you respond
angrily.
You probably planned it that way so you wouldnt have
to see me.
I cant believe youd ever say such a thing, you reply.
You dont know how to make sense of the relationship, dont
like interacting with her, and dont know how to escape.
You like Jake more than me, she says.
You visit Sarah and Robert more than me, she says.
How can you find time to visit Ryan and Rachelle, but
no time to visit me?
Im tired of your accusations and comparisons, you
reply. You also try to implement a new relational rule: And
you can no longer ask about Jake, Sarah, Robert, Ryan, or
Rachelle.
You create this do not ask about list not because you
dont want her to know about the important people in your
life, but because she uses her knowledge of your interactions with these others to discursively beat on you.
I booked a ticket to see you on Friday morning, you
say. I leave Sunday afternoon.
Thats not long enough, she says. Dont bother coming
at all.

How long do you want me to stay? you ask.

At least a few more days, she says.
I teach on Thursdays and Tuesdays, you respond. I cant
cancel my classes.
Whatever. You can find time to go to conferences or to
see Jake, Sarah, Robert, Ryan, or Rachelle. But you find no
time for me.
I am making time for you. I will arrive Friday morning
and leave Sunday afternoon.
I said thats not long enough, she replies. Dont bother
coming at all.
Beat up, hurt, and exhaustedthats how you feel. You
dont know how to make sense of the relationship and dont
like interacting with her. But you also feel like theres no
escape.
Telling stories you cant tellbeing scared to tell this
story. You love her. But youre not sure if its because you
must, because of obligation, or if theres genuine care. And
what if she reads this? This story doesnt have an identified
author, doesnt position a writerStacy or Tonyas a
trusted guide or reporter on the links between theoretical
categories and the real world, between research subjects
and the characters in this story (Stewart, 2007, p. 5). But
risk still exists. Risk exists in the inseparability of life and
text, in the collapse of identity, experience, and representation (Adams, 2009, p. 623). There is, also, possibility in
how these stories and the unidentified characters who tell
them ask us to focus on the experience as event, as offering
up multiple interpretations of nonfoundational, wavering,
becoming identities (Holman Jones, 2009, p. 611). You
and she become identities that imagine, perform, and write
not a flat and finished truth but some possibilities (and
threats) that have come into view in this scene, in these stories (Stewart, 2007, p. 5).
And so, I engage the autoethnographic, the telling of a
story, from experience, that illustrates the cultural expectations of and requirements for being parents and being
children. I engage the queer, the telling a story that I cannot
tell out of a fear of a lawsuit, a story that even though is part
of my experience, is an experience also about someone else;
telling a story shrouded in silence, telling it with the hopes
of making discursive and relational trouble; using a coauthored, I-we-you voicean ambiguous and fluid queer
textual technique. And I engage the reflexive by understanding norms that influence storytelling; understanding,
to the best of our ability, how we frame ourselves and others,
particularly how we make ourselves look good and just
while making others look bad and unruly; feeling guilty for
lying to and chastising another, for avoiding conflict rather
than trying to work through while simultaneously being
unsure of what to do or say; understanding how others implicated by a story might feel or react, especially given that

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Adams and Jones

they may react with difference and indifference or may never
have a chance to respond (Lorde, 1984); conceiving of
how we, Stacy and Tony, strategically use (or hide behind)
a coauthored, I-we-you voice.

Possibility: On (Not)
Being Acknowledged
Christmas 2009: The three of us peruse holiday cards, many
of which include pictures of families. We arrive at onea
wife, her husband, and two of their three children.
We should get a family picture of us, she says. You,
me, and Martin [her husband].
What about Jordan [your partner of the same sex]?
you ask.
Itd be nice to have just a picture of the family, she
responds.
Jordan is part of our family, you say. I will not take a
picture with you and Martin if Jordan isnt included.
Tears form in her eyes.
I have a question, you say. Look at this card. There is
a wife, her husband, and two of their three children. Is this
correct?
Yes, she replies.
Why isnt the third child in the picture?
Hes married, she responds. He sent a separate holiday card with a picture of him and his wife.
Do you think he should have taken a picture with his
parents and brothers? you ask.
No, she says. He is married, and is beginning his own
family.
Thats my point. Though I am not married, I am partnered. And . . .
But you arent married, she interrupts.
We cant get married! you yell, agitated by her ignorance. It is not allowed in our state. Weve had this
conversation numerous times.
If you arent married, then your relationship isnt as
meaningful, legitimate, or secure as a married couple, she
replies.
We are not having this conversation again, you reply.
Jordan and I love each other, and we have a wonderful life
together. If you cant understand thisif you cant understand us as a meaningful, legitimate, and secure couplethen
Im not sure I want to see you. Your disregard of us hurts.
You begin to engage her, but stop; youre tired of talking
and assume she will not understand. And you reflect upon
the autoethnographic, the telling of a story, from experience, that illustrates (heteronormative) expectations of what
passes as a family as well as how (legitimate) relationships
should look and feel; the queer, the telling of a story that critiques (harmful) expectations and brings attention to and
calling into question norms of how families and relationships

look and feel; and the reflexive, the understanding, to the

best of our ability, how we frame ourselves and others, particularly how we make ourselves look good and just while
making others look bad and unruly; feeling guilty for chastising another, of avoiding conflict rather than try to work
through it simultaneously being unsure of what to do or say;
understanding how others implicated by a story might feel
or react, especially given that they may never have a chance
to respond.

Possibility: Writing
Without Ending
July 2010: At home, away from the excitement and movement
and water, you settle back into your summer routine
sleeping in, taking an hour or more to eat breakfast, then
reading or drawing before finally moving into the world
after noon, in the heat of the day. Missing the waterlogged
afternoons on the boat, you suggest the YMCA pool.
Immersed in the cool water, you float on your backs.
You close your eyes and listen to the muffled sound of her
hands moving. The sound changes, shifts. You open your
eyes and see her drifting further and further from you as she
keeps herself suspended on the surface of the water. You
watch her moving away, eyes closed. She navigates into the
deep end, only realizing this when her hand touches the
floating barrier that separates the swimming lanes from
the open water. Her head jerks up. Seeing you so far away
and then realizing she cant touch bottom, she panics. She
begins swimming furiously toward you, her arms smacking
the water at sharp angles. Reaching you, she digs her fingers into your arms and wraps her legs around your waist.
She breathes into your neck and gasps, I didnt realize I was
so deep. I didnt realize I was so far away from you.
I was watching you, you were doing fine.
I cant swim in the deep water.
Sure you can. You were.
I wasnt swimming, I was floating.
Floating is swimming. Floating works.
Later, in the car on the way home, she says, I was afraid.
I know. What were you afraid of?
That I wouldnt be able to swim back to you. Or that if
I went under, you couldnt swim to me in time to save me.
But you were swimming. You floated yourself all the
way over there without even thinking about it.
I know. But when I started thinking about it, I couldnt
do it anymore.
You were doing it. You did.
She considers this and smiles. I know. I know I can
swim now, because I did it without thinking about it.
Well, good.
Im going to swim that way from now on. I like floating. I like being half in and half out of the water.

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114
Thats nice, huh?
And I like not knowing where Im going. I like not worrying about where Ill end up.
Thats not scary?
She frowns. No. Worrying about where youll end up is
scary. Worrying about how everything will turn out is scary.
How what will turn out?
How Im going to turn out. What my life will be. Ive
been thinking about it and worrying.
You look at her in the rearview mirror. Her eyes meet
yours. You hold your breath, then dive in. Worrying?
She looks away and you think youve missed your chance,
again. She breathes in sharply and begins, again. Worrying
people wont like me, worrying that I wont make friends at
my new school, worrying that I wont fit inthat I wont
have the right hair or clothes or backpack or know the same
stuff or anything!
Thats a lot to worry about.
Yes. And sometimes, when Im not doing what Im
supposed to be doingbeing polite or quiet or normal
I worry you wont like me, either. And that you wont want
me around anymore. And then I get angry.
I bet you do. But you should know that Im not going
anywhere. Ill be here, to help you when you need me.
I know that, but sometimes I get scared. I dont want to
be scared all the time.
No, I dont want you to, either. Why didnt you tell me
all this?
Because youd try to fix it. Youd tell me not to worry,
or to be angry. She looks up, finally meeting my eyes. Her
mouth twists and tears blur her eyes. She tightens her jaw
and pushes the words out, But I cant stop because I am
worrying. I am angry.
You wait. She closes her eyes and takes another sharp
breath. Today, while I was floating in the water, I decided
I am just going to be who I am and not worry so much.
I think thats very wise.
She lowers her head, defeated. It worked until I looked
up.
You open your mouth, ready to speak, then stop. You
think about stories that tell what we dont understand, stories that blink and waver on the threshold of intelligibility,
stories about all we cant tell. The autoethnographic means
telling a story about how much wechildren and parents
researchers and subjects, authors and readersworry about
fitting in, about normal, about being accepted, loved, and
valued. The queer means telling a story about being half in
and half out of identities, subject positions, and discourses
and having the courage to be fluid in a world relentlessly
searching for stability and certainty. The reflexive means
understanding the way stories change and can change, recognizing how we hide behind and become inside the words
we speak and writing the possibilities created by our means

and modes of address. You think about who is called by and

who responds to the I-we-you-she of these stories.
On the drive home, you think about her floating in the
water, suspended between here and there, between where she
is and where she wants to be. You look into the rearview
mirror, looking for (eye) contact. You want to tell her something that makes a difference, to tell her a story she can take
with her. You want to say that stories can be insurrectionary
acts if we make room for our (all of our) selves and their
desires, for making trouble and acknowledging the implications of doing so, for embracing the texture of knowing
without grabbing on to sure or fast answers. You want to
tell her these things, but you cantnot fully, not clearly,
not yet. And you understand that even if you did tell her
these things, your telling them wont make it so for her. She
will discover the power and responsibilities of telling stories for herself. You watch as she turns her head and looks
out the window. You think about her moving away from you,
into the deep water, and you let her go.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interests with respect to the authorship and/or publication of this article.

Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research and/or
authorship of this article.

Note
1. Parts of this essay are revised and updated from Holman Jones
& Adams (2010b).

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Bios
Tony E. Adams is an assistant professor in the Department of
Communication, Media and Theatre at Northeastern Illinois
University. He studies and teaches about interpersonal and family
communication, qualitative research, communication theory, and
sex, gender, and sexuality. His work has been published in Qualitative Inquiry, Soundings, Cultural Studies l Critical Methodologies,
Symbolic Interaction. He is the also the author of Narrating the
Closet: An Autoethnography of Same-Sex Attraction (2011).
Stacy Holman Jones is an associate professor in the Department
of Communication at the University of South Florida. She has
published work on the intersections of feminism, writing, performance, and qualitative methods in Qualitative Inquiry, Cultural
Studies l Critical Methodologies, and Text and Performance
Quarterly. She is the author of Torch Singing: Performing Resistance and Desire from Billie Holiday to Edith Piaf (2007).

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