Cellphilm production as posthuman research method to explore injustice with queer youth in New Brunswick, Canada

Abstract

Posthuman research methodologies center nonhuman actors and spaces. In this paper, we argue that technological mediation is a key component in a move toward the exploration of posthuman subjectivity in research and the restructuring of dominant understandings of gender and sexualized difference. Drawing on a cellphilm (cellphone + film production) based project with queer, trans, and non-binary youth in New Brunswick, Canada, we seek to center queer stories and experiences to speak back to their erasures in school spaces and landscapes. We argue that in researching with queer, trans, and non-binary youth in the Anthropocene, cellphilm method offers us the opportunity to think critically and creatively about environments, inclusions, and queering environmental futures (Lebel, 2019) within schooling structures.

Zine Production with Queer Youth and Pre-Service Teachers in New Brunswick, Canada: Exploring Connections, Divergences, and Visual Practices

“…We see disseminating the visual products among youth as a methodological opportunity for the study of, and a contribution to the literature on, participatory visual research relating to dissemination of knowledge produced by research participants (Burkholder & Thorpe, 2019). Our work contributes to a way of disrupting the erasure of queer, trans, and non-binary youth within schools and social studies curricula by sharing their zines with pre-service teachers and community educators.…”

“…Despite protection from discrimination in the New Brunswick Human Rights Act (2011), systematic discrimination of queer, 1 trans, and non-binary students continues to be prevalent within the local school system (Burkholder & Thorpe, 2019). The majority of Canadian teacher education programs do not do justice to issues of gender diversity, sexual orientation, or queerness (Airton & Koecher, 2019), and youth who identify as queer, trans, and non-binary face a higher degree of harassment than other youth in schools (Peter et al, 2016).…”

“…Mitchell et al, 2017) by telling their own stories in their own voices with DIY aesthetics. However, participatory visual researchers have only begun to probe the notion of what it means to bring a participatory ethos-including the perspectives of participants who generated the zines and the audiences who consume them(Rose, 2012)-to modes of exhibition and archiving (notable exceptions includeBurkholder, 2016;Burkholder & Thorpe, 2019;Lymn, 2014). As such, this study seeks to contribute to the literature on archiving participatory visual research by highlighting the ways that zines produced by queer, trans, and non-binary youth and pre-service teachers might be shared and disseminated as forms of political activism in their communities and in the digital realm.…”

Coproducing digital archives with 2SLGBTQ+ Atlantic Canadian youth amidst the COVID-19 pandemic

“…In this article, Casey, Katie, April and Amelia write together as the members of the Pride/Swell research team. Our project builds from earlier collaborations that Casey and Amelia had fostered with 2SLGBTQþ youth on Wolastoqiyik Territory (Fredericton, New Brunswick) through a series of monthly arts-based workshops surrounding issues of belonging and identity within and beyond schools (Burkholder and Thorpe, 2019;Burkholder et al, 2021;Thorpe, 2020). Casey is a cisgender, White [4], bisexual associate professor whose research program centers on exploring issues of gender, sexuality, belonging and activism through participatory visual approaches, especially using cellphilms, zines and stencil production.…”