The Politics of Numbers: Queer Data and the Counting of LGBTQ Communities

Edinburgh Futures Institute

Edinburgh Futures Institute, The University of Edinburgh

Centre for Data, Culture & Society

The Centre for Data, Culture & Society, a part of Edinburgh Futures Institute, builds capacity for data-led and applied computational research and aims to inspire and empower researchers to engage with data and digital research methods.

AbstractWhether we use surveys or interviews, ethnographies or focus groups – the methods we deploy as researchers do not arrive with us as some sort of apolitical or ahistorical artefact. They do not collect information about the outside world that is static, fixed and simply waiting to be uncovered. Rather, methods are crafted, tweaked and changed to serve the particular interests of individuals, organisations or ways of thinking.So what does this mean for projects investigating the lives and experiences of LGBTQ communities? Do methods equally convey the experiences of the most minoritised and least minoritised in minority groups? And might the methods we deploy in our research construct ideas about the groups under investigation?Departing from the idea that we always need to collect more or better data, Dr Kevin Guyan will share his work on queer approaches to the collection, analysis and presentation of data and pose critical questions about neutrality, biases, politics and power. Speaker BiographyDr Kevin Guyan is a researcher and writer whose work explores the intersection of data and identity, particularly as it relates to LGBTQ people in the UK. He is author of the book <a href="https://eur02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bloomsbury.com%2Fuk%2Fqueer-data-9781350230729%2F&data=05%7C02%7C%7C876192809e9f437af25708dcbf6ff4d0%7C2e9f06b016694589878910a06934dc61%7C0%7C0%7C638595734852778313%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=jHuKRf7xQ%2FkitTnMEhr0LOYhJj6FUPIRFQw28MMjiwI%3D&reserved=0" title="https://eur02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bloomsbury.com%2Fuk%2Fqueer-data-9781350230729%2F&data=05%7C02%7C%7C876192809e9f437af25708dcbf6ff4d0%7C2e9f06b016694589878910a06934dc61%7C0%7C0%7C638595734852778313%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=jHuKRf7xQ%2FkitTnMEhr0LOYhJj6FUPIRFQw28MMjiwI%3D&reserved=0" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Queer Data: Using Gender, Sex and Sexuality Data for Action</a> (Bloomsbury, 2022) and works as a <a href="https://eur02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.business-school.ed.ac.uk%2Fstaff%2Fkevin-guyan&data=05%7C02%7C%7C876192809e9f437af25708dcbf6ff4d0%7C2e9f06b016694589878910a06934dc61%7C0%7C0%7C638595734852792847%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=VxqZcWPPu%2Fy%2F36XLCDAoGy0RQzsNlwjwoV%2BJdxIhj4A%3D&reserved=0" title="https://eur02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.business-school.ed.ac.uk%2Fstaff%2Fkevin-guyan&data=05%7C02%7C%7C876192809e9f437af25708dcbf6ff4d0%7C2e9f06b016694589878910a06934dc61%7C0%7C0%7C638595734852792847%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=VxqZcWPPu%2Fy%2F36XLCDAoGy0RQzsNlwjwoV%2BJdxIhj4A%3D&reserved=0" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Chancellor’s Fellow</a> at the University of Edinburgh. Event InformationThis event will take place in Room 2.35 of the Edinburgh Futures Institute. Please inform us of any access requirements by emailing <a href="mailto:cdcs@ed.ac.uk" title="mailto:cdcs@ed.ac.uk" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">cdcs@ed.ac.uk</a>. Further details about how CDCS uses your information obtained from booking onto our events can be found at in our <a href="https://www.cdcs.ed.ac.uk/events-privacy-statement" title="https://www.cdcs.ed.ac.uk/events-privacy-statement" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Events Privacy Statement</a>.As of March 2022, the government formally removed all Covid restrictions in the UK. We ask that you continue to be considerate of others’ personal space, and please do not attend if you feel unwell or have any Covid symptoms. [Image Description: Kevin Guyan Project Deep Dive. Rainbow image for A Queer Data Approach.]