TenderQueer research/practice for The Polyphony

We’ve just had a piece published as part of a QUEERCIRCLE takeover on The Polyphony web platform. We’ve been huge fans of The Polyphony for years, and it’s a great place to have our work published because it focuses on the overlap between medicine/health (including mental health, trauma, neurodivergence and disability) and the arts/humanities (including crafting, memoir, fiction, and zines).

Our article brings together several of the research projects carried out at QUEERCIRCLE about the kinds of creative health practices they offer there. We explore what a more intimate and expansive understanding of research might look like, than the one most of us are familiar with. We suggest it could be valuable for all of us to engage in research into ourselves (embodied), our relationships (entangled), and our communities and wider cultures (embedded).

A page of handwritten text and line drawings. The title reads: 'Queer Health'. Underneath a single line reads: 'Queer approaches understand us as inevitably...'. Below is a drawing of three concentric circles. In the centre is a person with the word 'embodied' underneath. The second circle, which is headed by the word 'Entangled', contains: an image of a house in a circle with the text 'living and working environments' next to it; a drawing of four stick figures in a circle with the text 'our close people and their close people' next to it; a circle with a leaf and a fish in it with the text 'other beings we consume' in it; and a circle containing many abstract shapes accompanied by the text 'the bacteria, fungi and viruses inside and around us'. The outer circle, headed with the word 'Embedded', contains the following list, each accompanied by line drawings representing the item: 'time, history, ancestry, generations'; 'communities'; social systems, their norms and rules'; 'climate, biodiversity'; 'natural world'; 'built environment'; medical, legal, political, education etc. systems'. There are lines linking these different items to each other, and linking out to five text boxes. The word 'Embedded' links to a box stating: 'In our place and time, systems, structures, norms, what bodies, labour and lives are deemed valuable'; The word 'Entangled' links to: 'with other human and non-human beings within complex, ever-changing systems, networks, dynamics'; and the word 'embodied' links to: 'our body minds are inseparable, interrelated systems, carrying the impact of all our past experience and those of generations which preceded us'. On the left side one text box reads: 'No 'individuals'' and another reads: 'Who are the 'experts'?'.

 

We invite a TenderQueer approach to research and practice, recognising just how painful, vulnerable, and loving it is to stay with the trouble in ourselves, our relationships, and our world through such hard, hard times.

You can read our Polyphony article here.You can read the rest of the QUEERCIRCLE takeover articles here.If you’re interested, you can also check out our QUEERCIRCLE zines about Queer Creative Health, and Researching Ourselves. There’s a review of these zines on The Polyphony here.

 

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Published on September 23, 2025 09:26
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