This article presents findings from three arts-based studies conducted by the African Centre for Migration and Society, in partnerships with Gay and Lesbian Memory in Action and the Sisonke National Sex Worker Movement. Drawing on participant-created visual and narrative artefacts, the article offers insights into the complex ways in which queer migrants, refugees and asylum seekers living in South Africa negotiate their identities, resist oppression and confront stereotypes. It reveals the dynamic ways in which queer migrants, refugees and asylum seekers forge a sense of belonging in spite of concurrent vulnerabilities and structural discrimination. It also reflects on the benefits and limitations of using participatory arts-based research with marginalised groups.
In this commentary, I draw upon my work as activist and facilitator of transformLAB, a participatory zine-making workshop hosted online with transformation agents from the University of Cape Town (UCT). TransformLAB brought together a group of 16 transformation agents to dream about queer, decolonial, feminist and anti-racist alternatives in higher education. The intervention was hosted over a four-month period and culminated in the development of a zine. Artworks from the zine are curated in this commentary and offer an uncensored and alternate vision for furthering transformation, diversity and inclusion (TDI) at UCT and beyond. This commentary will draw on first-person reflections by the facilitator of transformLAB, artworks from the zine and participant voices to share some of the journey of this intervention. In doing so, this commentary explores the radical potential a dreaming exercise, such as transformLAB, can offer for TDI work in South African higher education.
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