A queer and Filipino social worker-researcher’s reflexive journey in academia

The aim of this paper is to explore the experiences of a queer and Filipino social worker-researcher navigating dual identities, particularly as a clinician and researcher, within Western academic spaces. Drawing on the concept of insider/outsider, I critically reflect on how, in research and clinical spaces historically dominated by White, heterosexual men, my educational and professional credentials grant me legitimacy and partial insider status, while my queer and Filipino identities simultaneously position me at the margins. The paper also reflects on experiences navigating the blurring of boundaries, or role confusions, as a social worker-researcher. The paper then discusses approaches and considerations social worker-researchers, both emerging and established, can employ to navigate these tensions, such as reflexivity, ethnographic refusal, and a Filipino concept called, “kapwa.” The implication of this paper is to expand the scholarship on the reflexivity of social workerresearchers, particularly within the queer Filipino/a/x/diaspora.