Queering Community-Based Research in Political Science: A Participatory Paradigm for Studying Representation

Introduction: In democracy, political representation is marked by tensions between exclusion and engagement. Addressing these dynamics requires approaches that centre those most affected. One such approach, community-based research (CBR), arose as a response by LGBTQ and other marginalized communities excluded from academia. CBR redirects scholarship toward advocacy-oriented inquiry that helps communities identify needs and produce change. However, political science has been slow to adopt CBR, limiting its ability to interrogate power and understand what representation means for groups excluded from electoral institutions.

Goals and Methods: This project co-constructs a study of queer and trans political representation reflecting community priorities while meeting doctoral requirements. A committee of community members, civil-society representatives and scholars shapes content under a power-sharing model: the doctoral student retains responsibility for ethics and analysis, while the committee determines questions, frameworks, instruments and mobilization products through deliberation and joint validation. Tentative methods include semi-structured interviews with candidates and content analysis of legislative texts from Canada, where trans representation remains limited but increasingly visible and polarizing. 

Results: The project offers three main contributions. First, it adapts CBR to the study of political representation, with attention to LGBTQ communities. Second, it produces actionable, democratized knowledge—plain-language briefs and educational tools—community partners can use and disseminate. Third, it models a power-sharing structure others can adapt while exploring tensions between CBR and the requirements of doctoral studies.

Conclusion: CBR is a methodological and epistemological stance that challenges neutrality in qualitative research. Embedding community direction into the study of political representation reframes the researcher as an accountable partner and shows how scholarship can be co-constructed with those most affected. For political science, this approach highlights the need to rethink representation not only as an outcome of politics but as a practice of research itself, demonstrating how qualitative inquiry can produce rigorous, socially transformative knowledge.