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Researcher(s):
Samson Harman
ENVS course(s): 400, 499 Initiated: May 2015 Completed: May 2016 Go to project site
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Background:
My thesis project seeks to examine how constructions of naturalness concerning race, gender, and the body are codified into phenomenal space, affecting access to economic, social, physical, and spatial justice for trans women and gender non-conforming BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color). This analysis delves into interpreting the historical structuring of "queer" spaces specifically, understanding the role of the state in negotiating social and sexual identities of place, and looking to the implications today when queer spaces and the state collaborate. The task of my thesis is not only to offer an explanation of how race and gender are given dominant meaning, but to suggest that racialized gender norms deserve a new convening that pays direct attention to the mantra of self-determination, found both in the ideologies of trans politics and in communities of color regarding environmental justice. By tracing the transfer of hegemonic ideologies onto the built environment, my project seeks to trouble not only sex/gender norms, but the institutions that house, produce, and reinforce strict binaries and social stratifications.
To unpack the relationship between people who embody femininity and gender deviancy, alongside the "queer" spaces that purportedly function to serve this population, requires a consideration of the politics of inclusion, how gender and race normativity have been formulated, and how the development of an exclusionary “queer community” group identity has come to exist. These themes explore both the racial and sexual connotations of citizenship in the United States, and the history of queer place-based territory claims, tracking how anti-queer, anti-trans and racist sentiment continues to find support in queer political and physical space.
Key Questions:
How do local, national, and transnational constructions of naturalness regarding sexuality/gender, the body, race, space, and citizenship feed into the routine displacement and erasure of trans feminine BIPOC?
What effects do Seattle's land-use policies and carceral-solutions to heterosexist violence have on perceptions of safety for trans feminine BIPOC?
Methodology:
My thesis outcome is a digital syllabus, where learners venture through a process of discursive analysis alongside me. This project draws from multiple, interwoven pedagogies, including trans/queer prison abolition studies, geography, American studies, Black and Chicana feminism, history, disability studies, queer theory, Indigenous studies, Black studies, critical race theory, and more. I urge participants to analyze the materials through questions and also, partake in more creative methods like cartoon-drawing and reflection.