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Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons

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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

‘Access Necessitates Being Seen’: Queer Visibility And Intersectional Embodiment Within The Health Information Practices Of Queer Community Leaders, Travis L. Wagner, Vanessa Kitzie Aug 2021

‘Access Necessitates Being Seen’: Queer Visibility And Intersectional Embodiment Within The Health Information Practices Of Queer Community Leaders, Travis L. Wagner, Vanessa Kitzie

Faculty Publications

Navigating healthcare infrastructures is particularly challenging for queer-identifying individuals, with significant barriers emerging around stigma and practitioner ignorance. Further intersecting, historically marginalised identities such as one’s race, age or ability exacerbate such engagement with healthcare, particularly the access to and use of reliable and appropriate health information. We explore the salience of one’s queer identity relative to other embodied identities when navigating health information and care for themselves and their communities. Thirty semi-structured interviews with queer community leaders from South Carolina inform our discussion of the role one’s queer visibility plays relational to the visibility of other identities. We find …


Discursive Power And Resistance In The Information Worlds Maps Of Lgbtqia+ Community Leaders, Vanessa Kitzie, Travis L. Wagner, Alexander N. Vera Apr 2021

Discursive Power And Resistance In The Information Worlds Maps Of Lgbtqia+ Community Leaders, Vanessa Kitzie, Travis L. Wagner, Alexander N. Vera

Faculty Publications

Purpose: This qualitative study explores how discursive power shapes South Carolina LGBTQIA+ communities' health information practices and how participants resist this power. Design/methodology/approach: Twenty-eight LGBTQIA+ community leaders from South Carolina engaged in semi-structured interviews and information worlds mapping – a participatory arts-based elicitation technique – to capture the context underlying how they and their communities create, seek, use, and share health information. We focus on the information worlds maps for this paper, employing situational analysis – a discourse analytic method for visual data – to analyze them. Findings: Six themes emerged describing how discursive power operates both within and outside …


“When Someone Sees Me, I Am Nothing Of The Norm”: Examining The Discursive Role Power Plays In Shaping Lgbtq+ Health Information Practices, Vanessa L. Kitzie, Travis L. Wagner, A. Nick Vera Oct 2020

“When Someone Sees Me, I Am Nothing Of The Norm”: Examining The Discursive Role Power Plays In Shaping Lgbtq+ Health Information Practices, Vanessa L. Kitzie, Travis L. Wagner, A. Nick Vera

Faculty Publications

This paper examines how discursive power shapes LGBTQ+ community health information practices. Informed by analysis of 10 information world maps drawn by SC LGBTQ+ community leaders, our findings indicate that while community can be a valuable construct to reject mainstream discourses of regulation and correction, it inevitably is fraught and not representative of all LGBTQ+ individuals. Findings can inform strategies for community leaders to facilitate more equitable information flow among members by identifying key structural elements impeding this flow at the community level.


Using The World Café Methodology To Support Community-Centric Research And Practice In Library And Information Science, Vanessa Kitzie, Jocelyn Pettigrew, Travis L. Wagner, Nick Vera Oct 2020

Using The World Café Methodology To Support Community-Centric Research And Practice In Library And Information Science, Vanessa Kitzie, Jocelyn Pettigrew, Travis L. Wagner, Nick Vera

Faculty Publications

The World Café (TWC) methodology is a form of action research that develops collective knowledge among individuals and communities to address shared problems. TWC can complement LIS research and practice that is increasingly participatory and community centric. The potentials and pitfalls for TWC are illustrated by ongoing research examining public library service to LGBTQIA+ communities for health information. The authors used TWC in a community forum between LGBTQIA+ community leaders and librarians/paraprofessionals in [name removed for blind review]. Per TWC conventions, participants engaged in day-long rotating café-style table conversations that encouraged new ideas and collective dialog. Discussion centered on two …