LGBTQ street youth talk back

A meditation on resistance and witnessing

Bibliographic Data

ID12215246
AuthorsCindy Cruz (0000-0002-0182-8235, University of California, Santa Cruz, corresponding author)
Year2011
Volume24
Issue5
Pages547-558
Publication date2011-09-26
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueInternational Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0951-8398 • E-ISSN: 1366-5898
PublisherTaylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/09518398.2011.600270
OpenAlexW1983862227
LanguageEN
Citations received50
References cited19

In this ethnography of LGBTQ street youth, I argue that despite the regulation and containment of their bodies, queer street youth consistently create spaces of resistance that move them away from the tropes of infection, contamination, and deservedness that are inscripted onto the bodies of queer youth. Using the work of feminist philosopher Maria Lugones, this essay articulates a framework for resistance researchers – scholars who enact a “faithful witnessing” in solidarity with the communities they are describing, a movement away from the radical othering that often happens in social science research. It is in this positioning as a faithful witness that researchers can attend to the deconstruction of the discursive climates of deficit tropes that obscure the gestures and maneuvers of resistance. The tropes of contamination and irresponsibility intersect many of the experiences of LGBTQ street youth in ways that implicate not only LGBTQ street youth, but also other marginalized bodies

Aesthetics · Art · Autoethnography · Deconstruction (building · Epistemology · Ethnography · Liminality · Memory work · Political science · Politics · Queer · Resistance (ecology · Sociology · Solidarity · Witness · African Sexualities and LGBTQ+ Issues · Anthropology · Gender Studies · Homelessness and Social Issues · Law · LGBTQ Health, Identity, and Policy