Joy as Method: Black Queer Placemaking in Higher Education and Family

• In Event: Black Feminist Sociology Meets Racial and Ethnic Feminist Theory

Abstract

Amid ongoing anti-Black and anti-LGBTQ+ violence, Black queer individuals craft spaces of belonging, safety, and joy that function as everyday forms of resistance. This paper examines how Black queer students and community members engage in placemaking practices across higher education and surrounding community spaces, focusing on how intersecting racial and sexual identities shape navigation of public, institutional, and familial contexts. Drawing on participants from historically Black colleges and universities in Atlanta and a predominantly white institution in Arizona, the study explores how Black queer individuals create spatial narratives that reflect both power dynamics and cultural significance. Analytically, this project asks:(1)What are Black queer students’ experiences within higher education? (2)How do intersecting Black and queer identities shape navigation of public spaces? (3)How do families of origin influence Black queer spatial navigation and decision-making?
Using a mixed qualitative approach—including semi-structured interviews, photovoice, and visual ethnography—this study centers participants’ voices while capturing embodied, relational, and affective dimensions of placemaking. Preliminary findings highlight the creation of “home” within and beyond campus through chosen community, aesthetic expression, and shared cultural practices. Joy, love, laughter, and collective care emerge as central strategies for negotiating exclusion, affirming identity, and cultivating belonging. Participants’ narratives illustrate how marginalized identities can simultaneously constrain and empower the practice of placemaking.
By centering joy as both an analytic lens and lived practice, this paper expands sociological understandings of resistance beyond social ills. It underscores the importance of pleasure, creativity, and relationality as tools through which Black queer communities survive, thrive, and transform spaces not designed for them. Ultimately, this work contributes to scholarship on Black queer life, placemaking, and everyday resistance, offering insights into how marginalized communities cultivate safety, recognition, and affirmation in institutional and social contexts.

Author

• Amina Melendez-Mayfield, Arizona State University-Tempe