Areas of Interest and Expertise
Gender & Sexuality • Organizations, Occupations, & Work • Theory
Social Psychology & Symbolic Interactionism • Qualitative Methods
Current and Recent Projects
(2022) Outsourced Exclusion: The Reproduction of Gender and Sexual Inequality in the Contemporary US Military
This research examines how LGBTQ military members and veterans understand their experiences in the increasingly inclusionary military. Drawing on 50 semi-structured in-depth interviews with LGBTQ military members and recently discharged veterans of the US military, I present three empirical cases in support of my concept of outsourced exclusion. While the US military is increasingly inclusionary, gender and sexual exclusion still persist, albeit in revised ways. I argue exclusion is implicitly outsourced to LGBTQ military members themselves who are the ideal neoliberal subjects. They inadvertently perform gender labor, and rely on narratives of resilience, professionalism, and patriotism, which help bolster access to organizational status and resources for some types of subjects at the expense of excluding others. In the military, hegemonic, neoliberal narratives of resilience, professionalism, and patriotism help ensure organizational control is maintained. This happens through the production of queer value by LGBTQ military members. This research contributes to understandings of “LGBTQ-friendly organizations,” diversity and inclusion, and intersections of neoliberalism, gender, and sexual exclusion.
UC Davis Undergraduate Research Seminar: Analyzing Narratives of LGBTQ Military Inclusion
Course Description (Winter Quarter, 2023):
I designed this course to use social science perspectives and center collaboration. It will focus on critical analyses of mainstream narratives of LGBTQ military inclusion in the US. No research experience is necessary, but students should have an interest in research related to gender, sexuality, and/or LGBTQ issues and/or an interest in critical theoretical approaches.
Meaning-making and Identities: Neoliberal Narratives of Occupational Distress and Suffering
Currently in design phase. Focus on melding Stress Process Model with Symbolic Interactionism to understand how people make meaning of their distress and suffering within organizations and incorporate those meanings into their subjective experiences of the world (e.g., identity).
Courtney Caviness 