ABSTRACT
Qualitative research is characterised by subjectivity rather than objectivity, closeness to the subject, uniqueness over universality, self-determination rather than social control, and solidarity and action not impartial advice. During the early 1990s an interdisciplinary intellectual movement began to take shape, coined, 'Queer Theory'. Queer theory built upon disciplinary and cultural work that lesbian and gay scholars had been producing, in some instances, since the 1960s, particularly in ethnography, history, sociology, literary criticism, women's studies and cultural studies. The fast-paced discussion of the parameters of 'queer theory', in both popular and academic contexts, attested to its potential and just as quickly produced critiques of its limitations. The indeterminacy of sex and sexuality in 'queerness', in tension with sexual identities built on biological categories, is a cornerstone of'queer theory'. Perhaps 'Queer Theory' is a misnomer insofar as Theory, at least implicitly, suggests a field of research in which both a discourse and its objects are systematic, coherent, and complete.
