Atmospheres of Violence

Atmospheres of Violence centers a conversation about trans, queer, and/or gender-nonconforming people of color (un)governability in a time of intense (in)visibility within the United States. Given the prevalence of neoliberal and right-wing practices of gender binaries and white supremacy, Eric A. Stanley's introduction historicizes trans activism and reminds readers that racialized, gendered violence has been foundational to US history and development. If the United States has been built on violence, the state monopolizes violence to protect itself and any suspicion of utilizing violence. Stanley tackles the neoliberal agenda of advancement, visibility, and equality, and how it preserves violence while simultaneously appeasing activist movements: ostensible advancements like marriage equality, trans actors playing trans roles, and hate crime legislation have occurred alongside countless acts of violence against queer/trans/gender-nonconforming people of color. Atmospheres of Violence argues this inclusion works in tandem with the state's violent expansion, which is foundational to modernity. Largely influenced by Fanon, Stanley utilizes an archive of AIDS histories, prison interviews, surveillance tapes, suicide notes, and renarration to bring the “fleshiness of lived theory” to the forefront (10). Stanley exemplifies the ways violence becomes heterosexual, gender normative, and whitewashed, individualizing and deterring examination of institutional structures. Fundamentally, justice for queer, trans, and/or gender-nonconforming folks would necessitate the “dismantling of [the law's] own administration” (7). If the state cannot do this, Stanley explores how to manifest a “world we want and need” (11).Atmospheres of Violence responds to this question through four chapters that document scenes of violence, building an archive of queer/trans destruction. Chapter 1 focuses on the death and memory of Gwen Araujo, a trans Latina woman, and Alim Akbar, a Black man. Stanley makes the argument that these deaths are not individual and the overkill within these murders are moments of ending trans/queer possibility, which has implications for queer/trans nonsubjectivity and nonbeing. Chapter 2 moves away from the highly visible to the ordinary workings of queer/trans violence, ranging from chattel slavery to the Pulse shooting. In particular, Stanley focuses on the exploitation, demand, and profit of blood. Chapter 3 covers surveillance, in terms of state monitoring and video footage of abuse/death that in the end does not lead to justice. Finally, chapter 4 unpacks the suicide note Seth Walsh, a gender-nonconforming teenager, left for their family. The note reads: “Hopefully I become the universe” (99). Stanley circles back in reflecting on the ways survival itself becomes a space of violence.Stanley ends with “Becoming Ungovernable” a conclusion that speaks to their acknowledgement of the ways “trans/queerness has and continues to spectacularly endure . . . this persistence is marked by a generativity that finds form in artistic and organizing practices” (17). Trans/queer youth operate within a precarious double bind of ungovernability that manifests joy and sadness, exultation and death, resistance and juvenile jails. Stanley ends with the possibility of being within impossibility. Indeed, this chapter resonates with what Berlant and Warner call the worldmaking project—a space (or, as Stanley calls it, a space of no space) of entrances, exits and, ultimately, projected horizons (117). The embrace of this project, as according to Stanley, requires radical dreaming that creates a new world. Since the quest to create a better United States is also the means by which its deadly force increases, abolition is the only way to manifest projected horizons; thus, we must adopt an abolitionist way of living.With the life (and death) of queer, trans, and/or gender-nonconforming people of color in mind, Stanley embraces an abolitionist approach to understand our current world and how we (queer, trans, and gender-nonconforming folk) create livable futures. As such, Stanley not only creates a space for queer stories and revolutions, but also highlights how academics can play an antagonistic role. My use of antagonistic has relations to Stanley's use of the term but does not fully embody the ways in which trans, queer, and/or gender-nonconforming individuals are antagonistic by virtue of (non)being: the ways in which their existence—and potential joy within it—are always at work against US governance. Yet, Atmospheres of Violence exemplifies how academic work can join in antagonistic rebellion. First, as a practice of care and anticapitalism, all of Stanley's profits are donated to the LGBT Books to Prisoners program. Second, Stanley openly contends with the difficult, imperfect decisions made when talking about violence, renarration, and cycles of harm. This tension between awareness, remembrance, and advocacy is evident throughout the book. The vulnerability to live, write, and theorize in a precarious space signals a practice that academics must embrace. These two acts—vulnerable, academic practice and refusing to work under the demands of capital profit—set the stage for Atmospheres of Violence and the possibility of academic work. I believe this to be a step towards that which might “grow the world we want and need” (11). After all, are we not—the academics, the students, the resistance, from Marsha P. Johnson to Ashley Diamond—the flesh of living theory?This book offers less of what academics within trans studies, queer theory or critical ethnic studies do not know but instead offers a way of survival: a gentle push towards a new, livable world through abolition. I wonder if or how this book could travel beyond a classroom. Should other antagonists (outside of academia) find themselves within this book and be inspired by their survival? Does abolition and reimagining require “outside” help? Both theory and experience would need to be accessible to those outside of the academy or queer/trans/gender-nonconforming world. After all, as Stanley points out themselves, even gay and lesbian activists are sometimes found to side with the state. I am left wondering if there is anyone else on our (queer/trans/gender-nonconforming) side.Another question that arises pertains to the renarration of violent death. Although Stanley does address the renarration of violence, the case for or against utilizing someone else's trauma to narrate a point still stands. Fanon and Angela Davis, as Stanley references, acknowledge the use of violence to overthrow violence—but what is said about sharing the trauma of queer, trans, and/or gender-nonconforming people of color? Stanley references and writes with awareness of the Black Lives Matter protests that took place summer of 2020, ignited and fueled by videos of Black trauma and death. These protests make the argument that 1) Black trauma must be accessible and 2) this trauma is what ignites the protest of human rights—after violence or death. Thus, it is interesting not to dwell on the complicated ways renarrating trauma can, in fact, be traumatic for the writer and reader, and cause more trauma itself. Of course, it is not lost on me that Stanley argues “our refusal [of the normative] necessitates dwelling in the place of harm as we search for another way out. We remain not because we gain anything from the consumption of pain but because we must name . . . this violence as the work of its abolition” (40). Nothing is gained from the consumption of pain, but what if something is lost? Can (academics/activists) always ensure that renarration of trauma will be used correctly and in a fashion that is helpful? This is not to say Stanley avoids the tension of trauma porn, but it is worth investigating to avoid dwelling in the “space of death” for too long (123).An abolitionist framework mandates community and this book extends the ways in which community is acquired. Atmospheres of Violence produces more questions than answers. Of course, it theorizes, examines, evaluates, but the end leaves room for possibility; it calls together scholars, activists, policy and culture makers to participate through collective action in dreaming a new, livable world. Atmospheres of Violence is an inspiring and generative call to imagine transformations that lead to belonging. And perhaps this is the power of Stanley's book: a call to action that asks us to find the ways ungovernability can lead to “opulence” in a queer world (123)

Political science · Queer · Sociology · Structuring · African Sexualities and LGBTQ+ Issues · Gender Studies · Law · LGBTQ Health, Identity, and Policy · Political Economy and Marxism

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