From "Aspiration Zones" to "Meme Venting": Trans Teens Narrate Humor in Survival-Rich Digital Literacies

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session 8
  In Roundtable Session: Digital Literacies for Equitable Aims (Table 1)

Abstract

A growing area of literacy studies considers the potential of humor to nurture critical literacies. These studies tend to conceptualize humor as a tool for resistance and have not yet considered the salience of humor for marginalized youth in constructing livable lives in unlivable worlds -- worlds shaped by interlocking structures of domination. In this paper, I build with and extend critical work on humor by considering how 21 trans and queer teens narrate the role and meanings of humor in survival-rich literate practices on social media—practices that arise out of necessity yet offer windows into expansive ways of being and organizing social life. In doing so, I will contribute to expanding paradigms of critical literacies research and practice.

Author

• Addie Shrodes, University of Colorado - Boulder