Research Agenda

Queering Deafhood: Deaf LGBTQ+ Adults in the United States**
Phase: Data collection
PI: Self; Advisor: Dr. Heather D. Evans and Dr. Judith Howard
Financially supported by: Harlan Hahn Endowment Fund and UW Sociology Dept.
Learn more about this work here!

Home and Community Based Services Rate Study by State of WA
Phase: Data collection
PI: Dr. Mark Harniss, University of Washington
Financially supported by: Washington State DSHS and UW Dept. of Rehabilitation Medicine.

Present: Public Health and COVID on Twitter 
Phase: Analysis
PI: Dr. Sara Curran, University of Washington
Financially supported by: National Science Foundation 

Trials and Justifications of Brotherhood 
Phase: Pilot Complete; Main Phase in Data collection
PI: Self; Advisors: Dr. Jelani Ince and Dr. Tristan Bridges
Financially supported by: Self

Defining the Myth of Brotherhood (in Fraternities)
Phase: Data collection
PI: Self and Breon Haskett; Advisors: Dr. Jelani Ince
Financially supported by: Self

Category X: Nonbinary Adults
Phase: Analysis 
PI: Dr. Barbara Risman, University of Illinois at Chicago
Financially supported by: National Science Foundation 

Peer-Reviewed Articles

Ryan DeCarsky, Penny Harvey, Sally Johnston. “Deaf Identity Salience: Tracing Daphne’s Deaf Identity Salience through Switched at Birth” Culture and Psychology. July, 2022. 

Book Reviews

Ryan DeCarsky. Reviewing:  Boystown: Sex and Community in Chicago by Jason Orne, “To Stay Gay, Boystown Becomes Less Queer” Contexts, May 2021.

Ryan DeCarsky. Reviewing The Mating Game: How Gender Still Shapes How We Date by Ellen Lamont, Men and Masculinities, August 2020.

Works In Progress *

Ryan DeCarsky. “Justifications of Brotherhood: The role of Hazing in Men-Only Social Fraternities” in progress. 

Ryan DeCarsky: “Influence, Authority, Trust: Public Health Communication in the wake of Social Media and a Global Pandemic” 

Ryan DeCarsky, Breon Haskett, Jessica Beyer, Aditi Ekbote, Isabel Wilson, Victoria Chung, Katie Gosner, Sara Curran. “#StayatHome: Evolving Health Behavior Instructions during COVID-19 across Louisiana and Washington”

Breon Haskett, Ryan DeCarsky, Jessica Beyer, Aditi Ekbote, Isabel Wilson, Victoria Chung, Katie Gosner, Sara Curran. “Public Health in 280 characters or less: Communication Strategies during COVID-19” 

Katie Sophie Gonser, Ryan DeCarsky, Sarah Jacob, Breon Haskett, Victoria Chung, Jessica Beyer, Sara Curran. “(Seeking) Legitimacy and Relevance: Protestant Megachurches and Twitter Use Amidst COVID-19″

Ryan DeCarsky, Hannah Kaufman, Heather Evans, Mark Harniss. “Principles of Care: Adults with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Speak Out” in progress.  

Ryan DeCarsky, Sally Johnston. “At the intersection of Gender and Sexuality: Non-binary, Polyamorous, and Thriving” in progress.  

*Co-authorship orders on in progress works is subject to change.

If any strike you, contact me! I am always looking for collaborators.

Primary:

Measuring Institutional Myths: Theory and Practice

• This project seeks to further define institutional myths as they are utilized in organizational research and in the theory of Inhabited Institutionalism (Hamlet 2021) and offer insights with how to measure them.

Queering Healthcare in the US: Applying queer ways of knowing to Primary Care

• This project is a large scale project offering a comparative, explorative study of healthcare in 3 U.S. cities where queer ways of knowing are reshaping aspects of healthcare. I plan to explore the origins of this work, queer clinics, and put the work of clinics in conversation with the growing LGBTQ+ focused care taking place in traditional settings. I plan to utilize NIH funding for this project and create a lab through the success of the initial wave.

Secondary:

‘Alt’ Twitter: Queer Men and Digital Sex-work

• This project explores the economies of intimacy developed and functioning on ‘alt’ twitter between at home porn creators and their twitter followers. It utilizes content analysis of user timelines, a theoretical analysis of the twitter as a platform, and a small set of interviews with content creators to illustrate the trends in the industry.

Swiping for Hookups or Love? Changing Dynamics of Online Dating Apps Industry 

• This project works to examine role of digital sexy communities and and sexual cultures have as they intersect with the dating/hookup app industry. The responsive nature of user driven platforms on an open market and the sociology of economics at work. Using platform analysis (examine the features of a platform) over time and cultural context, the paper helps explain why dating apps/hookup as an industry continues to grow.

No Homo: The Gay Joke Paradox

• This project is a content analysis project of gay jokes in media and is in direct conversation with Jane Ward’s groundbreaking book: Not Gay. While Ward (2015) masterfully delves into the process of authenticating straightness through leveraging of sexualities, this project focuses on a related leveraging of humor, humor meant to bolster masculinity through the feminization and stigmatization of gay men. This project offers a platform to delve into media based stereotypes and has implications on the socialization of young gay and queer men who are at the epicenter of this humor.