The role of video diaries in researching sexualities

This article explores the potential of video diaries in capturing identity performances. Through selected excerpts of video diaries by "queer" subjects, the methodological issues that the video diaries raise and the kinds of data made available through them are explored. This article argues that identities are constructed as a "text" on the surface of bodies and that the participant's experience of "comfort" or "discomfort" relates to the extent to which they are read with or against authorial intention. Identity reading is complicated in a heterosexist culture structured by "the closet" in which "misreading" has been developed into a powerful normalizing mechanism.