Results Summary

Phase 1, Part 1 (art pieces)

Below you can find the codebook listing the themes and subthemes and their definitions. This codebook was developed based on the content of the art in combination with their artist statements, but informed heavily by the content discussed in the focus groups (with artists and with non-artists). This referencing lends this codebook to be interpreted in a narrative way, where the art can be coded according to these themes, but the overarching messages are still interpretive to the viewer. Some themes like Gender Expression may not be readily perceived in pieces that were intended to depict something related to gender (being nonbinary). Similarly, other themes like Identity Visibility may be over-perceived by the viewer, such as perceiving there is an artist's intention of identity representation or even intersectionality due to the viewer's own experiences.

Phase 1, Part 2 (focus groups with artists)

Below are the primary themes, the frequency across the five focus groups, and a brief explanation of that theme.

Social Juxtapositioning, f = 132

• Authenticity repression struggles to socially accommodate differently to multiple community environments.

  • Conflict resolution from identifying that one may trust their living efforts and gratitude for what community environments may offer through life.

  • Urgency and expectation to preserve conservative traditional values and social norms over queer/disabled identity.

• Interpretation: One feels pressure to override their true self in order to present in accordance with different peers, coworkers or family. This displays as a mechanism of preserving implicit standards and traditional identity norms.

Fostering Endurance, f = 174

• Endurance and barriers through disabled, cultural and/or queer experiences in order to live is embraced.

• Values, beliefs and cultural traditions (especially in Hawai'i) becoming decentered from the influence of model majority societal norms.

• The inner lived experience that identity is a direct quality and value instead of an identity itself, leading into a characteristic expectation.

• Interpretation: The hardships and dilemmas that are encountered from those who are disabled, focused on cultural preservation and/or queer are aspired to prevent marginalized decentering and preserve identity as holistic, more than a label.

Reality Dismissal f = 81

• The witnessing of denied lived experiences due to queer and disability identity by social, cultural and/or situational standards.

• Disabled experiences are either disregarded at the surface level and stereotyped as a “textbook” occurrence, or are accepted and shared with other people in solace for what struggles are endured then lived with.

• Interpretation: Disabled voices and stories are not taken into account and carries the susceptibility to be reduced into a disapproving stereotype. These experiences, however, allow for finding community solidarity from shared struggles.

Non-Artists:

Intersectional Friction f = 81

• The internal or external conflict arising from the overlap of multiple identities (race, culture, health, or geography).

• Identity conflict becoming rooted in geographical or national differences

• Conflicts are specifically rooted in traditional gender roles.

• Interpretation: Identity struggles becomes apparent through differences in both cultural norms and preconceived expectations on gender roles enforced by other people.

Negotiated Visibility f = 107

• The active management of how much of one's identity is shown or hidden based on safety or social norms.

• Using clothing, hair, or "identity through aesthetics" to signal identity without verbal disclosure.

• Hiding identity specifically for physical or psychological safety ("repression for survival").

• Interpretation: Outward presentations and physical symbols as a gateway to showcase identity without the nuances that come with direct social interactions, which can concurrently come from the need to hide oneself carefully for public safety.

Institutional and Cultural Policing f = 105

• External pressure from large-scale systems (religion, family, or society) to conform to heteronormative standards.

• The heightened awareness of one's own identity as "other," or "out of place" due to surrounding normative assumptions. The feeling under scrutiny for not conforming.

• Policing that is explicitly tied to religious doctrine or spiritual expectations in society.

• Interpretation: The discomfort and divergence from selfhood when there is an internal knowing that one’s disabled and/or queer identity does not fit in with environmental norms, which can often span into forced conformity or spiritual doctrine.

Phase 2 (focus groups with non-artists)

Phase 3 (survey at the art show)

Coming soon...sorry!

Phase 4 (survey with all pieces)

Coming soon...sorry!