The final post, I suppose? At least, of the summer.

I have finished the interviews. All that remains is to write the write up, pack and clean the room I've been living in the past month, and go home.
I'd like to say that I have learned a lot from this research, but honestly most of what I learned was not about the topic at hand.
The first lesson I learned was that I am uncomfortable with only revealing parts of my purposes to certain people. Just saying "I'm researching testimonies" or "I'm researching coming-out stories" when in reality I'm researching both, while not technically dishonest, made it hard for me to engage with people honestly. The fact that I was there to study people rather than be in genuine community with them was something I don't enjoy. So this will probably my last foray into ethnographic research of any sort.
The second was that it's not easy getting lots of interviews when you need people to contact you (which was how things were set up to prevent accidental outing, primarily). I didn't reach my 10-20 interviews per group goal, though I came close on the evangelical side. Part of that is I probably didn't exhaust all the possibilities when it came to contacting queer people, but the majority of it was just that I didn't really know how to go about it correctly. Perhaps if I had more time to explore the different communities in Asheville I could have found more people to interview; or perhaps if it wasn't summer (a lot of churches have much more limited programming in the summertime). It didn't help that almost all of the groups in both sets met on Sunday, so they often conflicted with each other but still left me with no good way to network for most of the week.
Another thing I learned is that I really need friends and communities. The amount that I've been in my room this summer has been unhealthy for me, and every moment spent with other people, whether interviewing or just hanging out, was worth it. The solo life of an academic in the humanities is not for me. I need daily interaction with multiple people in order to be healthy and productive.
As for the research itself, I do think that there is a lot of interesting comparisons to be made between how people talk about their stories, and there's also a lot to be said about similarities and differences of how communities are structured (there's a lot the queer movement can learn from evangelical groups when it comes to organizing to create social change). I do not think, though, that I have evidence for my original claim that the two narratives are effectively the same. Evangelical Christian testimony is based not just in personal experience but in study and theological quandry. The people who I have talked to (which I'm seeing is a very biased sample composed mostly of middle-aged men) for the most part didn't put the same emphasis on community that all of the queer people I talked to did. Conversions of faith are personal and internal, but coming out is a community process.
So, I guess that's it, then. Thank you for reading! I hope it was educational, or something.

The Home Stretch

The students at the University of North Carolina at Asheville have returned and today is their second day of classes. On one hand, this is great because it means I have an opportunity to interview a lot of highly interconnected people. On the other, this is a warning that my time here is almost up; in 11 days I'll be going home, and I've already spend my last weekend. (I'm going home for Pride this weekend, and I'm going home for good the Saturday after.)
I've finally gotten a little more variety in my interviews. I have interviewed a woman about her testimony (though one person is not enough to identify trends, and there's nothing that jumped out about her story as totally different.) I still need to find queer ladies and nonmonosexual queers if I want to make this fully LGBTQ rather than a bunch of G and one T.
I hope that UNCA students who I interview can have more variety in these areas.
On the subject of my lost data: It looks like I won't be able to recover it for less than $700 dollars (and it's probably more), and then I wouldn't be able to get it in time. I only lost three or four interviews, and I've tried to recall what I could of them.
Interestingly, it's looking like I actually would have been (almost) able to afford it; I've actually been successful at making the grant last, and will have several hundred dollars left over. In part, I think that's a symptom of my failure to get as many interviews as I wished at first, because buying another twenty people Starbucks would have made a dent, but another part of it has been my cheap eating habits. (I don't know how sustainable subsisting primarily off of pasta, rice, Parmesan cheese, and Bolthouse Farms smoothies is health-wise, but it seems to be functioning well enough now.)
I think I'm going to wait on the deep introspection stuff until the next post, though.

On inextricability and seeing Asheville with new eyes.

Interviews have continued to arrive in a trickle, though I have at this point interviewed multiple people from both groups. However, I have yet to interview a woman in either group, and I will be attempting to change that in the future.

Wesserkins is visiting me this week. I was in Charlotte over the weekend to see my parents and go to the Bon Odori Japanese festival, and he needed a ride home. When I mentioned that there was a QUILTBAG-themed open mic Sunday evening (Literature Generated By The Queers In Asheville), he seemed really interested, and so (after he got permission from his parents, obviously) he came with me back to Asheville.

It's interesting watching him react to Asheville, to things like the existence of vegan drive-thrus and the existence of a church (First Congregational United Church of Christ, which is a very liberal church that has a large number of gay members) in which he felt comfortable (despite being a gay man and an atheist). It makes me wonder if I am too cynical, or if the differences between us (age, sexual orientation, religion, home-location, and ethnicity) explain most of the difference in our reaction. Perhaps I'm just forgetting how exciting Asheville seemed when I first arrived and experienced it. It's certainly different from any other place I've been in a lot of wonderful ways.

I also talked to an associate pastor at New Life Community Church in Asheville. I'm finding it's becoming more easy to talk to people about my project honestly while leaving out the other half, and I think it's partly because both parts of the project are important to me individually as well. Hearing people's testimonies is not just about the research project but is a way for me to better understand my own faith, to address doubts and questions I have and demonstrate how other people experience God or the Holy Spirit (or however they describe it) working. And I shared that with the associate pastor, and it's completely true. He suggested a book, "I Once Was Lost: What Postmodern Skeptics Taught Us About Their Path to Jesus", which discusses evangelical Christian testimonies from a sociological rather than narrative perspective, and also a series of sermons.
I do not know if it's because of the specific communities I'm studying or a general property of human sociology, but it continues to strike me that while I'm studying communities they study me back, and move to welcome me.

Hermitage, small groups, and friendships

This week has been mostly uneventful so far. I had one interview with a gay man on Monday, and he had rather intense story. I actually have some reservations toward using his story in the research because of a couple of the details that I can't share, but it was certainly much more difficult for me as an interviewer to process. I do think that interview helped show me a broader range of what I might expect to experience, and problematized the standard It Gets Better narrative in predictable but noteworthy ways. (I'm sorry for the academic speak, but I'm not going to share any details of interview stories here. That's not this blog's function.)

Tuesday was a very stay-at-home day. Other than jogging in the morning I didn't leave the house all day, and I read through a good portion of House of Leaves and futz around on the Internet. I haven't been getting that many emails from interested people through my networking, so I think I will have to try more aggressively to search for especially LGBTQ interviews. I also have been developing the habit of getting up only shortly before noon and going to bed after midnight, and that's partially because I've had late night activities (such as book club last night and Waffle House tonight) and partially because my room doesn't get that much light. I'll need to be working on that a bit if I plan to have interviews not in the evening (though evening is often the easiest time).

This (Wednesday) evening I went to a small group based out of Missio Dei at a home in Weaverville (north of Asheville) that is, during the year, mostly full of students (from UNC Asheville, Western Carolina University, and AB Technical College, for the most part). I had told the couple that led and hosted the group about my project ahead of time, and while I didn't get to make an announcement to the group as a whole, I did get to talk to some of the people and make plans to interview them. I even got one interview with a guy who's going off to seminary in a week. He did the interview right after the small group. It was practiced and we were done in less than five minutes while other people were still around; he seemed completely comfortable in the setting, though. (Also, in general the IRB's restrictions are more worried about the LGBT interviewees because there generally isn't any sort of danger to Christians in this country for sharing their testimonies.)

On a personal level, I had been increasingly aware of my isolation in Asheville since returning from Charlotte, and especially the staying-in on Tuesday made me feel restless and in need of social interaction. When I arrived at the house where the small group was to be held I immediately felt welcomed. The hosts introduced me to the people who were there, and showed me the snacks that were there for a the small group (which included hamburgers, though I was assured this was unusual). They also remembered my email from a few months back explaining why I was in town.

In addition, when I was introduced to some of the people in the group (specifically Samuel, Kat, and Tara), they immediately asked if I was “Wesley's friend”. (Wesley is a friend of mine who goes to UNC Asheville and has helped me out with this project in numerous ways, including letting me crash on his couch for much of spring break and helping me with information about many things including what churches were in the area that might be good places to look. He also told people about my project, including the two of them.) Naturally, that social connection helped me feel more at ease as well. Tara and Kat both volunteered to be interviewed and tell their friends about it as well.

After the small group and my one interview, I went with Tara and Kat to Waffle House. We hung out for about two hours or so and talked about a broad range of topics, ranging from how churches should deal with differing opinions to ceramics to Asheville's underground punk scene. It was a good experience to be able to hang out with people and feel like I have a group of friends in Asheville, since being here as a researcher makes it hard to be comfortable in the settings that I normally can carve a space out for myself in. It's also a reminder that the reason I chose to study stories told by these groups is because I am a person who lives in these communities, not just a person who is interested in them. And while yes, this does mean that I may not be the most objective observer, it does mean that whatever I learn this summer will be something that matters to me.

Everything's coming up roses!

The title sounds optimistic, but that's primarily because things are working out well.

First, I have started interviews! I have interviewed three people so far (all gay men, two of whom are married to each other). I have yet to talk about testimonies though, even though I had an opportunity last night which I will discuss later.

Second, I have moved to a rest-of-the-summer place! The place I was staying, while the people were nice, was quite a bit further from downtown Asheville and wasn't going to be available next week, though it was available August. The new place my parents actually found; my dad posted on Facebook and got directed to them. My hosts recently moved to a new place, and it's a large house up on a mountain in North Asheville. I have a roomy suite on the bottom floor, and the rent isn't bad either! My hosts are extremely nice and I feel right at home, though their dogs are a bit skeptical of me. (I also needed to have a latch on my door because I'm allergic to dogs and didn't want them in my space.)

The location is perfect. I can get downtown (or to parking downtown) in five to ten minutes, and I'm a short jog (through gorgeous green mountain scenery) from a Walgreens, an Ingles, and a Fresh Market. I may even start exercising in the morning!

Third, I went to the dinner in Weaverville that I mentioned last post. It was pretty far out of the city, but the area was beautiful and green and hilly. While there, I met several other guys (Christian guys) who had also been invited, and ate a delicious (if sauceless because I'm vegetarian) spaghetti meal.  At the meal, I was asked to share my testimony (which I did, I guess, though I don't think it was comprehensive), and then the husband/father of the family whose house it was offered to have the other guys share their testimonies. I hadn't brought my recorder and had left my consent forms in the car, and so I demurred. Hopefully that's an open invitation, though.

Afterward, we went outside and swung on a rope swing (which was SO AWESOME; I thought I was afraid of heights but I went ahead and jumped and it was awesome). The husband/father of the family also had a wood workshop in the basement, and we fired an ether-fueled potato gun twice, though we tried many more times and failed to get the right air-to-ether mixture.

There were three guys who were guests there with me; one of them worked with the husband/father of the family in his electrician business, while the other two are business partners who make electric tricycles that are somewhat competitors for motorcycles or mopeds. They all were a couple years out of college and unmarried. They, along with the family, are members of a house church that meets on Saturdays in Weaverville; hopefully next Saturday (July 27) I'll be able to attend.

I'm also going to a community group for the church I went to Sunday, also up in Weaverville, this evening. That should be interesting! I'll be sure to bring the recorder, just in case.

On Saturday-night hostels and Sunday mornings

Last night I stayed at Sweet Peas Hostel in downtown Asheville. It was awesome! I met lots of new people and had some interesting conversations; I made friends with Eleanor (who's on vacation from England) and Scott (who's from the Raleigh/Triangle area), and we talked about politics and existentialism and all the good reasons not to go out on a Saturday night. (The most compelling being "It's almost midnight" for them and "I'm not old enough to be let in anywhere" for me.)

I really like the hostel-living experience. It's a bit more expensive than renting in the long run, but there are loads of people to meet and the place itself was nice. (The shower was gloriously warm.) The people tended to be mostly around my age or a little older (most of them were surprised I wasn't 21 yet), so that made it a lot easier to connect.

One of the guys who was a few years older than the median pointed out that even though there was a flatscreen TV in the common area and he'd been there several nights, he'd never seen it turned on. The people in the hostel read instead. (There was a bookshelf with lots of great books! I didn't get to study it much because I was only there the one night though.)

Downtown Asheville on a Saturday is a pretty hopping place as well. There are people everywhere (families during the day and friend groups of various ages at night). Everyone seemed to be having a good time and I felt comfortable wandering around for no particular reason.

This morning I got up early (before almost everyone) to leave, and after checking out (which consisted of returning the key and putting the linens in the laundry room), I went to a morning service at Missio Dei, which is a nondenominational church that meets in an older church building. The praise band had a banjo in it, and the music as a whole seemed to have a bit more of a folksy feel that I'm going to theorize is an Appalachain thing. The preacher was young (I mean, probably thirties) and preached a message that seemed orthodox-evangelical and drew from historical scholarship for context. The body of the sermon was from Mark 12, where a scribe approaches Jesus and asks what the greatest commandment is.

I met a couple who had been going there for a couple of months, and who told me they actually attended three different churches. They have a house church that meets on Saturday out of their home in Weaverville, they go to Missio Dei in the morning (I went to the 9 o'clock service) and then go to Highland Christian Church later on. (Something I just realized: I ran into a similar name (Highlands) a couple days ago while reading the Jeff Chu book "Does Jesus Really Love Me?" in a section about a church in Denver, CO. I think the two churches aren't related but I'm not sure. I'll need to go there for church some time soon regardless.)

Anyway, the couple told me that they were having a dinner on Tuesday for a men's bible study sort of thing, and they invited me. That sounds like a good opportunity to take advantage of. I may also want to go to their house church the Saturday after next.

I'm going to move into a more permanent place in an hour or two. Currently I'm stealing WiFi from McDonald's and sitting in a Taco Bell in Candler to write this post. I guess I'll have to make sure to go by that McDonald's sometime so I'm not mooching.

Finally here!

Hello everyone!
I'm finally in Asheville!
Travelling here was an adventure. First, I was going to stop by the Best Buy at Northlake to get a USB recorder because I was worried I wouldn't be able to transfer sound files onto my computer (or onto the storage unit, rather) from my iPod. I couldn't find the Best Buy so I went to the SuperTarget. They didn't have one and I realized I hadn't packed my towel (I'd make a horrible hitchiker), so I resolved to go home and get the audio recorder later. However, on the way I found the Best Buy, so I ran in and got one anyway (there was a little confusion with labeling, but I successfully got the one that costed under $60, whew). Then I went home.
From there I re-mapped the route, and I saw that i85-i26 was the simplest route but the shortest route involved highway 74. I took i85...and ended up getting confused and taking 16 to 73 to 27 to 321 instead. But I got here in one piece!
The house, which is owned by a woman named Spyce and occupied by her, her sister, her sister's boyfriend, and the people renting it. It's perched on a hillside (like most houses in Asheville, I suppose) and surrounded by lots of lovely summer greenery. It's also across from a church, which was interesting. A woman was moving out when I got there, and her room's the one I'm going to be renting starting tomorrow. She had a dog, but she also promised to clean so my allergy won't be a problem.
I left and went to try to find a place to get my bearings. I ended up going to UNCA's library because thanks to Welsey I have access to the wifi (Hi everyone!). From here I'm probably going to go check into the hostel downtown, and maybe get something to eat. (Luckily there's lots of lovely places to eat around!)

Institutional Review Boards, looking for places to live, and why I'm still in Charlotte.

Hello everyone!

The original plan was for my project to start on July 1st. That didn't happen; now the plan is to go some time this week.

The first delay was that the funds for the Weinberg Grant ran out because priority was (rightfully) given to people working on senior theses. So I didn't find out I got the grant (which I did, yay!) until after school got out. After that I went ahead with planning things (including sending emails to groups in Asheville, oops). I also sent an email asking if I needed to seek approval from Northwestern's Institutional Review Board (IRB). I do, I found out a week and a half ago.

The biggest hurdle has been the IRB approval. Dr. Kathleen Murphy has been extremely helpful with me in the process, but there's been a lot of revising and rewriting in the process. However, even with that it would have been possible to go earlier to Asheville if it hadn't been for the combined problem that my adviser wasn't IRB-trained and that it was Independence Day-week.

Luckily, this weekend I got an email from Professor Carolyn Chen (who has done research on Evanglicalism among Asian immigrants among lots of other things), and she volunteered to be the Principal Investigator (which is an IRB-required position that basically means she's in charge of making sure the research doesn't cause the people being studied any harm). That means that I just need to finish the IRB application and I should be good. It qualifies for "exempt review" which means that Dr. Murphy is actually the one looking over it.

All of this hopefully means I should be ready to start the project by the end of this week!

Another related hurdle has been finding a place to stay. Luckily, I got a reply on a Craigslist ad for a room in Swannoa, which is relatively close to the city.

It was really looking like things might not work last week, but now everything seems to be going well!

Today

Hello everyone!

This is the blog I'm starting to document my personal experience researching in Asheville this summer. I won't be posting anything about the participants in the study here (because of privacy concerns I will not be posting anything about them anywhere except in my final paper with all the names anonymized) but will relate amusing anecdotes and other tidbits about my life and the process.

This blog may later include tales of my trip abroad to Turkey this September, so be excited for that!

Right, ground rules:
1) This is just my personal experience, so I will invariably say stupid things on this blog. You can comment on them, but just be aware that it will happen.
2) This blog is a safe space. That means that hate speech, threats, and discrimination against people for any reason, including religious belief, gender identity, and sexual orientation, is not allowed in the comments. If I mess up on this, please call me out on it.
3) Feel free to ask me any questions related to anything except about the (confidential, privacy-protected, etc) specifics of my interviews. I love to answer questions and send people links to things!
4) While I have imported posts from my Tumblr, I would prefer if you all avoid Googling around to try and find my tumblog. This Blogger blog may at some point become a professional portfolio component, and I'd prefer if you respect me keeping it separate from my personal internet use. (This is especially true for people in my family, church groups, or university who do not have access to my Tumblr, Twitter, or other accounts in any other way. Please respect my privacy. Thank you.)

If y'all could follow those, that would make you not a horrible person.

Finally, I'm linking this to my Facebook so if any of my friends are interested in reading about my life, they can. So welcome, everyone! Enjoy!

from the Tumblr, four days ago

I have been telling people when they ask about my summer plans “If I get the research grant, I will be doing research in Asheville, otherwise I’ll be spending the summer in Charlotte and possibly volunteering.”
And for the past couple weeks, what with being totally drained from Happiness Week, schoolwork, and finals, I have been thinking that I would like to have a summer off doing nothing much other than possibly practicing piano, writing, reading, watching TV and movies with Wesserkins, maybe seeing Nathan if he comes to NC, possibly volunteering with Gracie Harrington’s national LGBTQIA college group organization, and possibly volunteering at the CMLibrary.
But I’ve changed my mind. I don’t know whether it’s because I’ve not had to stress about finals or club events, because my meeting Thursday afternoon with the leaders of my small group forced me to deal with the fact that my sexual and religious identities are in legitimate conflict that needs to be resolved, because I’ve had multiple points where I’ve had to explain my research project or related topics to people, because after hanging out this evening with the socialists (especially Emiliano, who is doing things this summer that integrate his religious an political beliefs) made me realize that I am called to some sort of activism, or (most likely) some combination of the above. I have decided, however, that even if I am not funded I will attempt to do my research anyway. I have contacts already in Asheville, and I can ask them to help me find a host family to stay with while I do my research. I won’t be able to pay them rent, but I will do any chores, cooking, errands, or anything else they need me to (like living in a commune!). I may even stay with my mom’s college friend who’s an Episcopal priest in the area, if all else fails. 
There’s a lot of work I’d need to do to prepare for this, both as far as reading, theorizing, and preparing myself spiritually (with the expectation that God will move powerfully through this work) and as far as organizing logistically, contacting people, finding interviewees, and keeping both a private and web log. If this is truly the work set before me, God will provide strength and provision. I guess at this point the important thing is to gird up my loins with readiness.

from the Tumblr, seven months ago

I really want to do a comparative narrative or linguistic analysis of evangelical Christian conversion testimonies and queer coming out stories.

It’s a relatively simple project to research. Sharing testimonies is something I’ve found Christian groups do all the time, and plenty of queer people share stories about the process of coming out, so the stories are there. I know I personally have rehearsed both stories of my own in my head, even though I’ve never shared them formally, so I wouldn’t be surprised if plenty of people would be willing to tell their stories.
Plus since it’s a narrative form it’d probably be relatively easy to record (and thanks to my work at Sonic I’m now relatively good at transcribing recordings to text), so the data collection wouldn’t be too hard.
The only problem is that I know nothing of the literature already related to the subject, and I don’t have any clue even which department to go to that would have a professor interested in mentoring me to do this research. (Obviously gender studies and religion would be a good place to start…this would actually make a good thesis were I a gender studies major/minor.)