Paper short abstract:

Through Performance Practice as Research, this piece analyzes the assemblages of the gender norm on the first gender transition process of a teacher in a private Chilean elite school, generating methodologically and epistemologically subversive procedures for academic research in Education.

Paper long abstract:

In 2022, a secondary education Drama teacher started secretly experiencing a process that would cause a series of uncertainties in the quotidian life within one of the most prestigious elite private schools in Chile.

Critical to the heteronormative practices (Madrid, 2016; Ahmed, 2021) that constitute the school’s narrative, this work analyzes through a performative stage practice the assemblages of the gender norm in my experience as the first person carrying a transition process within this school.

This paper-performance characterizes material collected from these social practices in the first year of the transition -from complete secrecy to the process of public endorsement-, including its multiple discursive-material affections through my trans-teacher body.

A performative scenic practice (Kershaw, 2009) constitutes the research-creation methodology around an epistemological paradigm that situates the body assemblage (Jagger, 2015; Lyttleton-Smith, 2019; Jackson & Mazzei, 2013) in its performative dimension (Butler, 2007).

The experience of sexual diversity poses important challenges for educational communities (Harris & Jones, 2014; Barrientos et. al, 2021; Lizama, 2022) and the repercussions of this violence on bodies are located transversally within the affective space of the school as an assemblage (Dernikos et. al, 2020). Research on gender transitions in educational contexts is increasing both locally and internationally, although the literature from the experience of teachers is still developing in Latin America.

The scenic performative practice as a research methodology in the educational context proposes a transdisciplinary approach between pedagogical practice and the performing arts, generating methodological and epistemologically subversive material on the ways of generating educational academic research in this territory. This work considers the political implications of generating such a process in the Chilean context while proposing a reflection based on affirmative ethics (Braidotti, 2014) around affect, secrecy, safety,y and support for transgender people in schools.

Paper short abstract:

Contemporary austerity politics has rendered disabled people in Sweden in a perpetual state of fear of a cut or complete withdrawal of support crucial for everyday life. This paper examines how the fear of losing support impacts the possibility of being visible in close relationships.

Paper long abstract:

The Swedish welfare state is often considered a well-functioning system of stratification granting safety and predictability to its citizens. However, since 2009 a decrease in welfare state support for people with disabilities has taken place. (Bylund, 2022; Norberg, 2019). Austerity measures significantly impact everyday life, often resulting in dependency on partners, parents or children or re-institutionalisation (Bylund, 2022). Hence, disabled people in Sweden can be said to live in a perpetual state of insecurity, fearing a cut or complete withdrawal of support.

Furthermore, the existence of a romantic partner often renders a reevaluation of support as social services and governmental agencies claim that the partner should take on some of the support needs. As a result of this, the notion of visibility in close relationships is constructed as a potential danger for those in need of support. (Bylund, 2022).

The paper examines the impact of austerity measures on practical living conditions, close relations and the existential experiences of the self and others. It does so from an understanding of ableism as a hegemonic discourse that centres the lives and desires of those understood as abled-bodied (Campbell, 2009; McRuer, 2018) and a phenomenological understanding of the welfare state as a means of orientation (Ahmed, 2005; Bylund, 2022).

The paper shows that there is an uneven distribution of safety and visibility through the welfare state dependent on dis/ability. Due to austerity politics, disabled people alter their desires, dreams and everyday actions in relation to fluctuating access to livability and safety.

Paper short abstract:

I will present ethnographic research on two genetic diseases, associated with disorder of sex development: Turner syndrome and congenital adrenal hyperplasia. I will ask: how parents manage knowledge on diagnosis? What is hidden from children in the context of these bodily conditions?

Paper long abstract:

My presentation will be based on ethnographic research on two genetic diseases, associated with the disorder of sex development: Turner syndrome (TS) and congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH). TS affects only girls and involves a partial or complete absence of an X chromosome. Some characteristics of TS include short stature, ovarian failure, and as a result infertility. Usually, TS requires estrogen replacement therapy and growth hormone treatment. The diagnosis is usually made in childhood.

CAH is an inherited condition which prevents the adrenal glands functioning correctly, and they produce too much testosterone, they also might not make enough cortisol, and aldosterone. CAH is associated with androgenization of the body, which translates into masculinization of the female genital organs, often followed by surgical correction of organs. It affects also males, but they do not have ambiguous genitalia. Both genders can experience other symptoms such as early onset of puberty, or short stature. Patients must take daily life-long medication. In Poland, all newborns are screened for CAH and its treatment is usually implemented quickly and effectively.

In my presentation I will scrutinize how the child is informed about the diagnosis. How parents manage knowledge on TS and CAH? To what extent the knowledge about the medical condition belongs to the child, and to what extent to the adults? What is hidden and what is revealed from children? What is the significance of a secret or an understatement in the face of a chronic condition that requires numerous medical interventions?

Paper short abstract:

The contribution discusses group autoethnography as a way to prepare a research project on an elusive, hard-to-articulate topic of crip temporalities, and introduces specific findings on what to focus on and what questions to ask when studying this topic.

Paper long abstract:

Connecting crip theory with critical time studies opens new research areas about other, diverse, and inspirational temporalities. While certain temporalities are often discussed (being late; being short of time; schedules; timing), there are lots of subtle, elusive moments that remain unarticulated. Nevertheless, these moments are an integral part of crip temporalities, which the author collective intends to study. Aside from reading the literature, the team decided to explore their own, everyday temporalities before starting the research project, in order to know what to focus on, what questions to ask, what to research.

The authors themselves are in diverse life phases and have varied time experience; some of them have been diagnosed with a disability (e.g., Asperger syndrome or obsessive-compulsive disorder), while others have not. A closed, shared Facebook group was established, and no one was allowed to use the shared information externally. Thus, a safe space was created, which enabled the researchers to open up. The posts were in the form of short diaries, which other team members commented on. There were days when many posts appeared, as well as periods of silence. The method could be described as ‘group autoethnography’, which makes it possible to mutually confront diverse experience, generate a more rich and heterogeneous material and awake imagination.

The contribution discusses group autoethnography as a way to prepare a research project on an elusive, hard-to-articulate topic, and introduces specific findings on what to focus on when researching crip temporalities.

Paper short abstract:

Swedish gay saunas existed from the early 1970s up until the mid-1980s and functioned as one of the first semi-public safety zones for men who desired other men in Sweden. This paper examines their relation to secrecy and anonymity on the one hand and visibility and sociability on the other hand.

Paper long abstract:

Homosexual acts were made legal in Sweden in 1944, yet the following decade was in many ways still characterized by institutional homophobia coming from all corners of the political spectrum. From left to right there were concerns that the legalization would lead to homosexuality moving from the shadows of society and into public space, having certain societal repercussions. A general fear of indecency and misleading impressionable youth were among the main fears. During this time, men would meet in parks, at railway stations, bathhouses, public urinals, and cinemas for sex, as they had been doing for centuries already. The meetings would for the most part be hasty and anonymous and always with the risk of being exposed. After legalization, exposure still meant a risk of being physically attacked or blackmailed, sometimes both. The situation for men cruising other men remained somewhat the same up until the 1970s when the first gay sauna opened in Stockholm in 1971. This would be the first of nine saunas that existed in Sweden up until the mid-1980s. Partly modeled after other European and North American gay saunas and gay bathhouses it became one of the first semi-public safety zones for men looking to have sex with other men in Sweden. Here the guests would, after paying an entrance fee, be able to be sexual and affectionate with each other in an indoor facility with less risk of being attacked or harassed, enabling new social patterns of interaction to develop.

Paper short abstract:

In this paper I explore how naming conventions come into play in same-sex couples in Norway. Naming practices confirm gendered hierarchies through using men’s surnames. Which narratives are used in same sex couples? How does naming contribute to family making?

Paper long abstract:

Lesbian and gay couples in Norway lead lives that in many ways are indistinguishable from straight couples. Politically, queer rights are strong, exemplified in the un-controversy of the national 2022 Queer culture year celebrating 50 years of abolishment of the laws against gay relationships. However, strong anti-queer movements can be seen across the world, and the Oslo shooting 25. June 2022 in connection with Pride, confirm that not all favour equal rights for queer lives.

With these tensions in mind, I am interested in how relationships are done, and families made, by queer couples, exemplified through last name choices.

Based on interviews with members of same-sex couples I will discuss questions such as: How are naming choices made? When gender difference is let out of the equation, how do couples talk about what to call themselves? Which narratives guide their choices?

I have previously looked at how gender hierarchies are confirmed and challenged through last name choices made by Norwegian men in relationships with women. This paper is an exploration of how gender plays a part in same sex couples as an extension of my previous work, and has a comparative lens. But my aim is also to provide some preliminary findings, adding to the slowly growing literature on name choices in queer relationships. When lived lives break with heteronomy, naming provides an opportunity to stand out, to blend in, or to conform to at least some of the ideals of what a family or a couple should look like.

Paper short abstract:

The history of stigma is about power written on bodies. However, many stigmata are not visible but can manifest, for example, when verbally revealed as feelings of dirtiness in an interview. How does studying invisible stigma affect stigma, and the power relation between interviewer/interviewee?

Paper long abstract:

Dirt, as Mary Douglas have shown us, is an emotional device for the upholding of cultural norms and social structures, rather than a material category. Feelings of dirtiness can therefore both help to order the world, and define one’s position within it. Self-reflexive judgements of dirtiness, or its opposite – cleanliness - were recurrent in the reports by the twelve women who used drugs, that I interviewed for my doctoral thesis “Det hade ju aldrig hänt annars” Om kvinnor, klass och droger (2021). Drug use has specific connections to the concepts of dirt and cleanliness, and in my dissertation I analyse these connections in relation to the societal context of Sweden, where drugs - just like in many other Western countries - at the same time are taboo, central to everyday life (eg. as medications) and uplifted as a components of celebrity life. Drugs are thus only dirty in specific contexts and requires an intersectional and contextual analysis, interested in the meanings and conditions of dirt. Drugs are often described as dirty, for example in anti-drug campaigns as well as by users and ex users, that can describe the dirtiness of drugs as a long-lasting stigma. Such internalized stigma, conceptualized as dirt, can be invisible until revealed by the stigmatized. This differs from historical stigmas such as penal tattoos, or current stigmas based on racism, for example, and creates a situation where the inscription of the stigma on the body can, partly, be the work of an interviewer.