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Paper short abstract:

How are people experiencing places and objects differently depending on identity, norms and belonging? This paper discusses, through LGBTQI people´s experiences of places and objects in Helsinki, Finland, the capacity of places and objects to reproduce feelings of belonging and non-belonging.

Paper long abstract:

How are people experiencing places and objects differently depending on identity and belonging? What kind of feelings are attached to places and objects and how have these a capacity to affect people? These questions are entrances to my phd thesis.

I am with queer phenomenology (see Ahmed 2006), intersectional and posthumanist perspectives (see Barad 2007) examining LGBTQI people´s experiences of places and objects in the context of Helsinki, Finland. The overall aim is to produce knowledge about how places and objects are actors (see Bennett 2010) in reproducing feelings of belonging and non-belonging from a norm critical perspective. Methodologically I am re-centering the focus from a specific group/s of people to instead highlight cultural norms through people´s experiences of them. Through the experiences of LGBTQI identified people, I examine the material-disursive entanglements (Barad 2007) of places, objects and cultural norms such as heteronorms. Inquiries that raise questions of (in-)equality and democracy in relation to place, norms and identities.

I am using semi-structured and go along interviews combined with visual ethnography (Pink 2007) where I photograph places and objects with the research participants. This with the aim to through the pictures visualize the discussions around material-discursive entanglements of places, objects and norms from an intersectional perspective.

In this paper I will with examples from my own work discuss what epistemological consequences it has to think norms and cultural processes through materialities, that is, with posthumanist and new materialist perspectives.