Tracing, Expanding, and Making Accessible the Digital Pathways of Latinx Sexual Dissidence in the Hemisphere

Abstract

<p>The project aims to analyze, archive, and enable the powerful ways that contemporary Latinx intersectional queer activists, located in sites as disparate as Oakland (U.S.) and Santiago (Chile), use YouTube, Facebook, and other globally popular media platforms to disseminate their activist-oriented cultural productions and connect with other activists. Envisioning and theorizing liberation from intersecting oppressions, Latinx activists across our hemisphere make important contributions to queer and transgender culture that are unevenly visible because they occur in ephemeral digital spaces and are incoherent from the standpoint of the most massively circulated, received ideas about gender, race, and sexuality. My project consists of the present essay, which analyzes formations of sexual dissidence in relation to the disciplining and extractivism of academic institutions, as well as a multi-modal website. Grounded in virtual and IRL community-based participatory research methods, the digital resource accompanies the creators of Latinx sexual dissidence by using the technologies and funding I have access to in order to offer a multilingual, semi-public digital resource that supports the archiving, production, translation, and intra-community circulation of Latinx sexual dissident culture, thought, and activism.</p>