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Transgender negotiations of precarity: Contested spaces of higher education
Author(s) -
BonnerThompson Carl,
Mearns Graeme William,
Hopkins Peter
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
the geographical journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.071
H-Index - 64
eISSN - 1475-4959
pISSN - 0016-7398
DOI - 10.1111/geoj.12384
Subject(s) - precarity , negotiation , embodied cognition , gender studies , queer , invisibility , sociology , feeling , power (physics) , transgender , social psychology , psychology , social science , epistemology , philosophy , physics , quantum mechanics , optics
We use feminist and queer theorisations of precarity as emotional and embodied to explore how trans people experience and negotiate university campus spaces in North East England. Through analysis of 15 interviews conducted with university students and staff, we highlight how precarity is lived and felt through an exploration of the ways in which different spaces of the campus become contexts of hope, comfort, and belonging, as well as anxiety, fear, and violence. We detail the specific ways in which university spaces can come to shape feelings of precariousness and how these are relational to experiences of being trans in the wider city. We conclude by highlighting what an emotional and felt approach to precarity can offer geographers interested in power, marginalisation, and place.