What research are you currently conducting?
I am working on a project relating to youth self harm and focusing on LGBTIQ young people. LGBTIQ relates to young people who are questioning their sexuality or gender identity, or who describe themselves as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or intersex, for instance.
I am doing this research in collaboration with Elizabeth McDermott at University of York. We areinvestigating the perspectives and experiences of young people because we want to find out howissues of gender or sexuality may be related to self harm for some youth.
Why is this research important?
It is important to focus on the experiences of young people because much research on self harm treats young people as statistics (focusing primarily on how many young people self harm), or as psychiatric cases (addressing self harm primarily as a mental health issue).
On the other hand, research that engages with the experiences of young people, taking into account the social contexts in which they are struggling with questions of identity, offers an opportunity to better understand what makes self harm appear as a viable course of action for some youth.
What is your motivation for doing research?
Research is one way to bringing about change - and I mean changes in understanding, changes in policy and practice, and social change more broadly. This is my initial motivation. In addition, I find it is very stimulating and worthwhile way of working. I feel it is a privilege to be able to do research, especially on issues that have the potential to make a difference to people’s lives.
How is the research conducted?
This research project is qualitative, involving online and face-to-face interviews with young people describing themselves as LGBTI or Q. So far, we have carried out a pilot study to test the online method, so we are still quite early on in the project.
What benefits can your research have?
This particular project will have the potential to influence policy and practice relating to suicide prevention, health service provision, and support for young people in educational institutions. Currently, when service providers focus on youth, they often overlook LGBITQ youth. We hope that the findings from this research will help to change that.
Where do you get your ideas and main research questions from?
Each research project I do leads to many questions that could be the focus of the next project. There is no shortage of questions! My research on sexuality and research using qualitative methods stems right back to my masters thesis, in 1993, where I focused on women and bisexuality. I began researching suicide attempting and self harm when I was in New Zealand, in 2001.
What do you see as the main challenge for your research field in the future?
On-going challenges in research relating to youth who are marginalised in relation to sexuality and gender concern the way sexuality and gender are understood. Young people often, quite rightly, reject systems of labelling that previous generations have used. Where one generation uses the word 'homosexual', the next feels more comfortable with the word 'gay', and the next with the word 'queer'. Attempts to communicate with potential research participants and develop a good sample are hindered by such issues.
By far the biggest challenge facing this area of work relates to stigma and prejudice. Young people who self harm face a lot of stigma. Young people described as LGBTI or Q face prejudice. The marginalisation of these two overlapping groups impacts on our ability to bring about changes at the level of policy and practice. It also can make it hard to get research funding.
This is very ironic. Funders are sometimes not keen to support research on 'minority' issues, yet arguably the very basis for some young people's resorting to self harm relates to the marginalisation and stigma they face. If we are to tackle public health issues sensitively and effectively, then we need to have funding for research focusing on the very many ways in which particular groups of people are marginalised and therefore can miss out on the support and services they need.