Strategic methodological essentialism: An approach to transnational LGBTQ+ audience research

This article considers the productive frictions among audience research methodologies, queer methods, and critical translation studies. We reflect on the process of conducting audience research with LGBTQ+ viewers of Netflix’s makeover show Queer Eye (2018–present) in Brazil, China, Germany, and the United States. We examine the methodological challenges of studying transnational LGBTQ+ audiences while accounting for differences in language, culture, and identity. Drawing on insights from queer media studies, decolonial theory, and translation studies, we propose “strategic methodological essentialism” as a framework for conducting cross-cultural audience research. Adapting Gayatri Spivak’s concept of strategic essentialism, this approach advocates the careful use of language and identity categories for the pragmatic purposes of data collection and political engagement, while remaining critically aware of their limitations. Strategic methodological essentialism advocates an embrace of queer failure as a critical method to encourage context-specific approaches that challenge dominant paradigms in audience research and media studies. We conclude by offering a model for future audience research that embraces the productive tensions between methodological rigor and the fluid, unpredictable qualities of LGBTQ+ lived experiences across global contexts.