FIELD CLOSETING IN THEORY

Navigating fieldwork requires an awareness of the researcher’s relationships to their study participants, professional connections, and broader social networks. Rightfully, the onus has been placed on recognizing the degree of power that the researcher brings to the field (Fujii Reference Fujii2012), but this power dynamic is a relational one. Each field site has its own sociopolitical realities. Researchers, particularly those who have a marginalized identity in their fieldwork contexts, are constrained by their respective field sites. Some have used their own marginality as women to embed themselves safely (Sirnate Reference Sirnate2014), whereas others have selectively revealed identities to affect in-group and out-group perceptions (Chambers Reference Chambers2020; Tewksbury and Gagné Reference Tewksbury and Gagné1997). In such situations, researchers’ marginalized identities can be transformed from being a liability to an asset in fieldwork as they “overcome distrust and earn trust” (Marks Reference Marks, Krause and Szekely2020, 25). They are also subject to interpersonal and circumstantial dynamics outside their control or ability to anticipate, as their interlocuters and study participants react to their engagement (Chacko Reference Chacko2004; Townsend-Bell Reference Townsend-Bell2009). For queer researchers, the social dynamics surrounding their respective queer identity in fieldwork are difficult and have received little focus. Although it is important that queer researchers have been included in fieldwork discussions (Chambers Reference Chambers2020; Driscoll Reference Driscoll2021; Sirnate Reference Sirnate2014), their experiences require further consideration.

The selective revealing or obscuring of a researcher’s queer identity for the purposes of safely conducting fieldwork involves a difficult decision-making process that I call “field closeting.” In this process, a researcher purposefully adjusts their expression and even public recognition of their queer identity. The closet in US society is colloquially understood as a queer person attempting to hide or obscure their queer identity in its entirety. Each new encounter and new acquaintance require “new calculations, new draughts, and requisitions of secrecy or disclosure” to maximize safety and acceptance in social environments, which causes the closet to be a “fundamental feature of social life” (Sedgwick Reference Sedgwick2008, 68). The colloquial concept evokes a binary of aggregated behavioral outcomes: either the uninhibited public expression of a queer identity or its total denial (i.e., those who have “left” the closet will not reenter it). I argue that this conceptualization fails to acknowledge the agency of the queer individual. The boundaries of the closet are adjustable and deployable; they do not require a constant and absolute denial of an identity as the colloquial definition implies. It is this flexibility that offers a queer researcher the means to adjust to social realities in their field site.

This description of field closeting may be familiar to researchers holding a range of marginalized identities, and not solely queer identities; yet a fundamental concern for queer researchers engaging in field closeting is that a failure to do so successfully can place their research and their safety at risk. Queer researchers who refuse to disclose the existence of significant others or to adopt salient gender roles are inhibited by the heteronormative standards of the field from acting freely in their fieldwork contexts, but researchers also play an agential role in determining the size and scope of the field closet they deploy (McDonald Reference McDonald2016). In my description, a larger field closet equates to more of a queer researcher’s identity and expression being concealed. Although it is far from having the ethical implications of covert methodologies, field closeting can nevertheless yield similar ethical and personal dilemmas with interlocutors, because “the paradox was getting close to them without them getting close to me” (Calvey Reference Calvey2008, 912). Because the field closet is adjustable, some queer researchers engage in field closeting without much difficulty. Yet studies show significant differences in mental health outcomes—particularly depression and anxiety—among queer men and women in relation to their public expression of queer identity (Pachankis, Cochran, and Mays Reference Pachankis, Cochran and Mays2015). My experience in the Russian Federation demonstrates that the adjustability of the field closet can be a protective measure, but it can also place queer scholars at risk beyond fieldwork as hostility to queer identities takes on geopolitical salience and increasing intensity.

FIELD CLOSETING IN RUSSIA

My experiences in Russia before I began my dissertation fieldwork informed the approximate conditions of the field closet within which I would function. Over a period of six years during which I learned Russian and engaged in initial research, my experiences in regional capitals in Russia shaped the dimensions of my initial field closet: I would conceal my gay identity altogether, except among close acquaintances whom I could trust. The scope of my field closet was reasonable given the urban areas I lived in, which offered the benefit of anonymity and varying degrees of liberal thought. These stays in Russia were brief, which reduced the strain of existing within that field closet. These experiences confirmed that I could use my research methods without issue and could maintain my personal health and safety as I continued my graduate education.

Just before my dissertation fieldwork began in 2013, however, the Russian government passed the “gay propaganda” bill, which led to considerable uncertainty regarding whether my established field closet was suitable. I had observed an increasing antipathy toward queer identities and queer expression in Russia; yet enshrining these views in national law represented a discernible increase in insecurity for me as a gay researcher. The first arrest made under this law occurred in my primary field site: a man stood in a pedestrian thoroughfare holding a sign that read, “Being gay and loving gays is normal. Beating gays and killing gays is a crime” (Guillory Reference Guillory2013). National-level anti-queer laws were affecting my field site directly and altering my perception of its relative safety. My research project required traveling to several regional capitals where I did not have prior experience, and stories emerged of violent attacks on gay men throughout Russia being filmed and posted online to “out” them (Balmforth Reference Balmforth2013).

Given this rapidly shifting sociopolitical context immediately preceding my year-long research project, I altered my methods while significantly expanding my field closet to best protect myself. I changed my project focus to concentrate on archival work and publicly identifiable regional elites, rather than including ordinary citizens relevant to my research. I worried about my ability to maintain an expanded field closet in more personal exchanges of trust with everyday people, whereas my prior fieldwork experience gave me confidence that I would not have an issue achieving the trust sufficient for elite-level interviews. To expand my field closet, I altered my social media profiles to reduce the chance that acquaintances, past or potential, would discover my same-sex partner, and I prepared to curtail an active social life in the field out of fear that I would be put into situations where more elaborate concealment would be necessary.

These were choices I felt compelled to take, because I had received precious funding for my fieldwork and my career was just beginning. I had existed in a closet of roughly that size before I had self-identified as a gay man, and I resolved I could do it again, particularly with my privileges as a white cis-male intact. My partner, however, was unwilling to reenter any closet and was appalled that I would be willing to do so, and our relationship ended. The personal toll of field closeting was increasing and would continue in unanticipated ways.

NATIONALITY AS LIABILITY AND ETHICAL UNCERTAINTY

In the first few months of fieldwork, I devoted all my research time to prepare for and obtain interviews with regional legislators, and I was preparing to collect data by using my nationality to my advantage as I had successfully done in the past. Working in regional capitals offered me greater prestige and professional opportunities, because I was considered a rare commodity: an American scholar. I could leverage my nationality as an asset to offer lectures, give advice on grant and conference proposals, and connect people within my professional networks. These dynamics reflected the power and responsibility I was trained to be cognizant of as I conducted research. Though I was struggling personally, my field experience and my methods were yielding the anticipated results.

In early 2014, however, the Crimean annexation and the outbreak of the war in eastern Ukraine transformed my US nationality into a liability for my research. The annexation of Crimea was so rapid that it unleashed cascades of uncertainty regarding the Kremlin’s goals within and outside Russia. Suddenly, my regional political interlocutors were not responding to my inquiries; I was eventually told that no one knew what information was sensitive or should not be discussed. Yet I hoped that the boundaries of acceptable inquiry would settle and allow me to reestablish my connections. The outbreak of violence in eastern Ukraine ended such hopes, when sanctions against Russia were levied and distrust of Americans increased precipitously. I experienced such distrust when attending a press conference of activists encouraging local Russians to volunteer for the war in Ukraine. In the proceedings, it was acknowledged that the geopolitical situation was grave because there were Americans in every room, all of whom were working for the CIA. In this context of such sociopolitical anxiety, my project was in shambles, and I would need a new approach.

It was during this time of project redesign that I was beaten in the street by three young men. I was walking home from the gym that I had recently joined to improve my mental and physical health. After the assault, I did not want to talk to police or file a report, because that would expose me to interactions that I did not have experience managing. The assailants had not used any weapons, which suggested a lack of premeditation, nor did they say anything that suggested a collective, coherent motivation for the assault.

The unprecedented assault did not have a seriously impact on my physical health, but it left me wondering whether my methods were putting myself and any interlocutors or study participants at risk. I could not determine whether I was attacked as an expression of anti-American sentiment or whether I was more perceptible as a gay man than I understood. In short, I struggled to evaluate my positionality and exposure to risk. If the intent had been to intimidate or harm me because of a specific identity, I presumed that would have been communicated. I therefore concluded that the attack was random and that my interlocutors and study participants were not at greater risk of harm.

The need to adapt field methods in response to changing local dynamics is not a new concern, whether in authoritarian or democratic regimes, but the changes in Russian society added considerable uncertainty regarding my exposure to risk. In my field sites, this transformation constituted a “scientific closure” that made my nationality and my gay identity difficult to contend with (Markowitz Reference Markowitz2016). The assault’s effect on my everyday life in the field was noticeable. I internalized a sense of insecurity and expanded my field closet such that I withdrew from nearly all socializing, particularly when I traveled to other regional capitals to conduct interviews. This expansion reflected my confidence in deploying a field closet for interpersonal exchanges but my lack of confidence in its capacity to mitigate broader sociopolitical concerns. Yet my decision to withdraw as much as possible from society also reflected the privilege of my nationality. The maximally expanded field closet was clearly not sustainable, but it would only be needed until I could leave for the United States, which demonstrates the strength of the privileges I retained in the midst of an uncertain period. As such, I reconfigured my project, gathered the remaining interview data I could over the summer of 2014, and returned to the United States hoping to disassemble my field closet.

FIELD CLOSETING AT HOME AND SUBSEQUENT ADAPTATIONS

My field closet, however, could not be disassembled as I had hoped, and I have since discovered that the protection it can offer is not limited to fieldwork. After my return to the United States to write my dissertation and enter the academic job market, it was suggested repeatedly that I leverage my gay identity to my advantage by making clear indications on social media and professional activism. Unfortunately, my field closet has remained deployed to protect myself for future trips to postcommunist Eurasia, which continues to engage in anti-queer rhetoric and policies for their authoritarian populist appeal. In Russia, for example, an expanded law was passed in December 2022 that makes punishable any expression of queer identities and queer relationships in public: it effectively seeks to eliminate queer expression from public life (Sauer Reference Sauer2022). This reflexively will shape how I will pursue subsequent fieldwork in the region (Sultana Reference Sultana2007), and it continues to inform my identity as a gay man in my daily life in the United States. The field closet I maintain while outside the field is small, requiring efforts like publishing this article anonymously, but I cannot fully disassemble it if I am to travel and conduct research safely in the world region in which I have accrued expertise.Footnote ²

All researchers must be prepared to alter their methods as needed in the field, but queer researchers may face distinct obstacles that field closeting may not sufficiently address. Even as conditions changed and I adapted accordingly, I was subject to an exchange of power with my field site, and I was left uncertain as to whether I was taking appropriate measures. Undoubtedly, queer scholars can and should engage in fieldwork. Necessary precautions should be acknowledged and incorporated in fieldwork’s design and execution, including the psychological strain of field closeting. Yet field closeting should not be seen as a universal option, equally suited for every researcher. Instead, by excavating the breadth of fieldwork experiences, we can improve our work to ensure the well-being of the researcher and those involved in their research as we design our own projects, mentor others in their design, and evaluate the contributions of fellow scholars.