Agency in Borderland Discourses: Examining Language Use in a Community Center with Black Queer Youth

Abstract

This article focuses on the ways in which a small group consisting mostly of Black queer youth makes sense of their use of language to assert agency in a world that is often heterosexist, homophobic, ageist, and racist. The author draws from the work of Gee and Anzaldúa to identify what youth call “Gaybonics,” as a Borderland Discourse that is intertwined with Ebonics. The author and youth worked together in a youth-run center for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning youth to analyze the ways that these youth engaged in Gaybonics to elicit pleasure and subvert oppression, and, when their borders were violated, they shifted from this discourse to another to retaliate against hatred. When youth analyzed their use of Borderland Discourses, they came to understand the ways that they engage in such discourses to position themselves as agents and the power they can (and cannot) access by engaging in various discourses. The author asserts that youth need opportunities to explore such access to power through language, particularly in the margins, as conceptualized by hooks. Finally, the author calls for work with youth that not only supports their assertion of agency but also their efforts at activism.

[v]at is going on? Local and global ideologies about Indian English

“…2 As I will show, the assessed social value serves as a gatekeeping device (Blackburn 2005, Shohamy 2007 ) for global constructions of social authority (Bourdieu 1991 ), while its local ideological value stands in dialogic opposition to its global value. In order to understand the nuanced connections and negotiations between local and global ideologies about this variable, I offer four types of data: the sociolinguistic construction of Apu, an Indian cartoon character from The Simpsons ™, which has reached global audiences; the focused targeting of the IE v/w merger by American and international "accent reduction" institutes; personal responses by speakers of American English (AE) to a focused listening task involving merged IE data (akin to the methods of Coupland & Bishop 2007 ); and IE speakers' refl ections on the value and function of IE in the local context.…”

HIV/AIDS education in schools: the ‘unassembled’ youth as a curricular project

“…For interesting studies of agency and resistance in analyses of sex education, see Blackburn (2005), Weis & Carbonell-Medina (2000), and Rasmussen, Rofes, & Talburt (2004). 2.…”

“…It reflects, certainly, that the key to the exercise of modern social administration involves finding new ways to govern, to help children govern themselves, to help them learn to be autonomous citizens who could be responsible for themselves. But, it also reflects that children are not fully autonomous citizens, and those who are irresponsible are to receive different types of interventions to salvage them for society and for themselves (Bloch, Holmlund, Moqvist, & Popkewitz, 2003).…”

Critical Collaborative Inquiries in Social Studies: Fostering Inclusion, Engagement and Literacy

“…Critical literacies are pedagogical and theoretical understandings of literacy that focus on critical analyses of language, multi-genre and multimedia texts, power, and norms with an aim towards disrupting social inequalities, revealing ideologies and dominant discourses, and taking action for social justice (Comber & Simpson, 2001;Janks, 1993;Rogers, 2002;Shor, 1987). While much critical literacy research has centered on the socio-political issues of race and social class, there is a growing body of researchers that are including a focus on sexual orientation (Blackburn, 2002(Blackburn, , 2003(Blackburn, , 2005Martino, 2001Martino, , 2009Mattson, 2008;Unks, 2003;Young, 2007Young, , 2009Young, , 2010.…”