Centering Queer Joy in Response to Sexual Violence
(PI: JJ Wright)
The aim of this SSHRC IDG-funded research is to 'queer' and 'crip' approaches to addressing gender-based violence (GBV) which includes challenging the taken-for-granted whiteness in the teaching of sexuality education in and out of schools through partnerships between youth, community organizations, and public schools in New Brunswick and Alberta. By engaging BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Colour), disabled and 2SLGBTQ+ youth in art production and community building through research at a distance (Nguyen et al., 2021) and in-person workshops, Queer Joy! aims to develop a public-facing approach to knowledge production and analysis via queer approaches to digital archiving, the creation of events that center BIPOC, queer, and disabled community members, and explicitly accessible exhibitions—online and in communities. We seek to show the ways in which everyday media making practices (e.g., cellphone video production) may be refocused toward an area of research attention. What is more, we endeavor to do this work in a participatory fashion, drawing on the research team, project partners, and research participants’ own expertise as 2SLGBTQ+, disabled, BIPOC New Brunswick and Albertan citizens.
Pride/Swell: A Mail-based Art & Activism Project with 2SLGBTQ+ Youth in Atlantic Canada (2020-2024)
This SSHRC Connections Grant project—with co-applicants Amelia Thorpe, Dr. April Mandrona & Dr. Katie MacEntee—engages 2SLGBTQ+ youth from Atlantic Canada in art production about their lived experiences. From August 2020 - July 2021, Pride/Swell makers received a monthly package of art supplies and a prompt to create work in response to. We will also work as a collective of 2SLGBTQ+ youth think about curating a participatory archive of the monthly art projects to be shared broadly with communities. Check out our website & follow us on Twitter, Facebook & Instagram. In 2022, we received funding from SSHRC to extend the project to explore art, archiving and activism with an intergenerational focus (ages 14-65+).
Preparing 60 zines to send to 2SLGBTQ+ participants across Atlantic Canada.
SexualityNB: Supports & Barriers to Teaching Sexuality Education in New Brunswick, Canada (2020-2025)
This SSHRC Insight Grant funded mixed-methods project—with co-applicants Dr. Anik Dubé, Dr. Sandra Byers, Dr. Lucia O’Sullivan, Dr. Katie MacEntee, Dr. Pam Malins, Dr. Lynn Randall & Dr. Pam Whitty—seeks to work with pre-service and in-service teachers (Pre-school to Grade 12) to investigate the real and perceived supports and barriers to incorporating comprehensive and culturally competent sex education (CCSHE) in New Brunswick (NB) pre-schools and public schools. We seek to create and widely disseminate teacher-produced cellphilms (mobile film productions) to support sex education in relation to 1) gender and sexual diversity; 2) issues relating to consent; 3) notions of pleasure; and 4) sex within the digital realm (including pornography, sexting, and online dating).
Exploring Educational Reform during Covid-19 with New Brunswick Teachers (2020-2022)
This NBIF & NBTA Grant supported study (PI: Matt Rogers) works with New Brunswick teachers to understand their experiences with teaching amidst the Pandemic.
Queer History Matters! Queering Social Studies Education in New Brunswick (2018-2021)
This SSRHC Insight Development Grant funded-project seeks to work with pre-service teachers to create short cellphilms (cellphones + film production), zines, stencils, and other media, as well as lesson plans and unit plans, in order to include 2SLGBTQ+ histories and experiences in New Brunswick Social Studies classrooms. The project also looks to extend theorizing on participatory archives (e.g. YouTube and social media website) with pre-service teachers.
Where Are Our Histories? Exploring Inclusion & Exclusion with Queer, Trans & Non-Binary Youth in New Brunswick (2018-2020)
This project with queer, trans & non-binary young people in New Brunswick seeks to work with youth to create media (cellphilms, zines, stencils, buttons) and engage in art making practices (knitting & screen printing, etc.) to address existing and desired conditions in school & society more generally.
We are Hong Kong Too (2013-2018)
We are HK too is a research project with a collective of ethnic minority young people who have grown up and studied in Hong Kong's public schools. Through the medium of cellphone-video making, we have gathered, brainstormed, written, filmed, and edited some pretty amazing cellphilms (films shot on a cellphone) that describe the experiences of growing up and going to school in Hong Kong as an ethnic minority. Through these cellphilms, we answer: Who am I? Where do I belong? How do I participate as a citizen of HK?
Katrina's (2015) Where do I belong in Hong Kong?
Participatory Digital Fieldnotes
As a part of my doctoral fieldwork, I kept participatory digital fieldnotes where participants could read, access, comment on, and respond to my thoughts-in-process while I was in the field. By employing a comic-style format, I looked to engage my participants “ who aren’t necessarily essay readers and who aren’t necessarily in academic institutions” (hooks & Mesa-Bains, 2006, p. 2). The site remains as an archive of my fieldwork experiences.
