Abstract
This paper offers a unit activity which is based on the integration of queer phenomenology in teaching positionality in undergraduate courses, exploring its potential as a feminist pedagogical tool for promoting self-reflection and critical engagement with identity. Drawing on Sara Ahmed's Queer Phenomenology, this approach invites students to understand how their embodied experiences of gender, race, and other social locations intersect with larger systems of power and privilege. I have built this unit around a series of creative exercises, including identity collages, story maps, and personal timelines, that help students reflect on their individual and collective experiences. By blending queer phenomenology with intersectionality and standpoint theory, I invite students to articulate and critically analyze their positionality in academic and public discourse. The culmination of this work is the creation of a positionality statement, which accompanies students' final research papers, offering them a framework for reflecting on how their identities shape their scholarship. By centering embodied experiences and fostering critical dialogue, I offer a feminist pedagogical approach which strives to develop a classroom environment that is both inclusive and generative.
Recommended Citation
McCleskey, Grace
(2026)
"(Dis)orientation: Using Queer Phenomenology to Teach Positionality and the Positionality Statement,"
Feminist Pedagogy: Vol. 7:
Iss.
1, Article 10.
Available at:
https://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/feministpedagogy/vol7/iss1/10