Disrupting White, Colonial Systems of Care: Theorizing a Queer and Trans Ethic of Care

• In Event: Creating Spaces of Belonging and Care for Queer, Trans Black, Indigenous, and People of Color Communities

Abstract

This study explores how three queer, trans, Black, Indigenous and/or otherwise racialized (QTBIPOC) teachers in Ontario, Canada conceptualize a radical form of care called “queer and trans ethic of care” in K-12 schools. This paper aims to unearth the community-based, racialized, queered and trans-gressive knowledges of care that sustain QTBIPOC within a system that does not and cannot in its current form provide life-affirming, joyful and thriving futures for QTBIPOC. The theorizing of QTBIPOC teachers presents a necessary challenge to the embeddedness of white supremacy, settler-colonialism and colonialism within the educational system as they work to care for themselves and their students.

Author

• Bishop Owis, University of British Columbia
  Presenting Author