WRDS 370 Research Writing and Marginalization

Course overview

All knowledge, including research knowledge, is created from particular subject positions. In Western research traditions, such positionality has been and predominantly continues to be rooted in values which favour whiteness and colonialism, heterosexuality and cisnormativity, ability and individualism. Further, such subject positions shape how researchers design their research, what kinds of questions they ask, and how they report their results. Such research reporting occurs in peer-reviewed publications, public media, and informal discussion. This course raises critical questions about the social, political, historical, and ethical contexts of research writing by focusing on marginalized groups and intersections between marginalized identities. Approaching this work from a writing studies perspective, we will be particularly interested in how the shifting values and ethics informing research practice are mirrored in the language features, rhetorical choices, and textual structures of research writing. To investigate these discourse features, we will consider the history of how these groups have been conceptualized and treated in research practice, and investigate how recent incursions into this history, particularly by members of these groups, “speak back” to Western research traditions. We will consider how this speaking back happens in research publications as well as in more public arenas, and you will explore how your work can contribute in a potentially public way.

Working from within the growing field of Indigenous writing studies and the emerging field of transgender writing studies, this version of the course specifically considers the place of Indigenous and trans/gender-diverse (TGD) people within research writing, and within the research cultures which produce such writing. Investigating both historical and current research discourse, we will consider research ethics, historical constructions of Indigenous and TGD people, and emergent language practices which centre the voices and knowledge of these communities. Our work in this course will provide you with opportunities to radically question research writing as it has been inherited within the academy, and to consider the positionalities of other researchers, of their research participants, and of yourself in this process.

The work of this course will focus on questions such as: According to which principles has the writing of historical research on these populations been critically evaluated? How have contemporary challenges from such populations shifted ethical principles and discursive positioning in research communities and beyond, in knowledge communities outside the university? How do language features, rhetorical choices, and textual structures of research writing reflect these shifts and respond to ongoing challenges?

Please be aware that our course will at times examine disturbing and traumatizing topics, including (but not limited to) eugenics, genocide, conversion therapy, and pathologizing of identity. At the same time, we will have opportunities to celebrate the resistance, self-determination, and commitments to justice which have arisen in response to such practices, within the academy and beyond. Please do not hesitate to speak to the instructors about your reactions to the material and topic of the course. Please also do not hesitate in seeking additional support beyond the course. We are committed to teaching in a trauma-informed way as well as to supporting you in the paths that you choose for your engagement with the course material.