Non-binaryism and challenges for social research

Abstract

Non-binary and queer identities are now more represented and visible in popular culture, media and LGBTQ+ movements as well as in academia. In recent years international and European institutions stress the importance of giving representation, also in research and data collection practices, to all subjects that fall within the acronym LGBT+ including non-binary identities. The focus on representing the different ways of acting, meaning and expressing gender in data collection leads to understand statistics beyond an exclusively binary key. This paper aims to explore the genealogy of the concept of non-binarism in Europe and in Italy, to identify in particular the challenges that gender non-binarism poses to social research at epistemological, theoretical and methodological levels.

Keywords: non-binary, gender, social research methods, data.