Hi SSW Community,
I would like to invite you to attend our doctoral student, Tino Camacho’s qualifying paper defense on Monday, May 13 at 1:30PM PST viz Zoom or Room 305A. See abstract below.
Title: Mamfok I Talayan Hinemlo’ : Weaving Resistant Relationalities to Promote Queer and Transgender Pacific Islander Wellbeing
Location: SSW Room 305A and/or Zoom: https://washington.zoom.us/j/91869369240?from=addon Meeting ID: 918 6936 9240
Abstract:
Queer and Transgender Pacific Islanders (QTPI) experience challenges to their wellbeing related to the lateral oppression of their Indigeneity within their communities. As state systems and policies require performances of cisheteronormativity to access land, welfare, and citizenship, Pasifika communities are pressured to police QTPI’s Indigeneity, specifically their genders and intimacies, to retain land and resources. However, QTPI’s existence refuses and resists cisheteronormativity as a measure of Indigenous belonging and authenticity. To better understand the relationship between QTPI experiences of lateral oppression, defiant performances of Indigeneity, and wellbeing we used Collaborative Qualitative Analysis on 11 interviews completed with QTPI adults living in Washington state from an Indigenist Collaborative Research study with QTPI led community organizations. We sought to understand (1) how QTPI resist (or not resist) settler colonial constructions of Indigeneity, (2) the relationship between QTPI Indigeneity and their health, and (3) and how QTPI build Indigenous connectedness to engage cultural determinants of health. We found experiences of lateral and structural oppression contributed negatively to QTPI overall wellbeing by creating disconnectedness with their ancestors, families, communities, and cultures. However, through resistant and defiant practices of relationality – practices of love and care for self; resurgent practices of extended kinships (chosen families, community care); and through remembering, retelling, and sharing QTPI stories of past, present, and future – QTPI were able to improve heal that disconnectedness and improve their wellbeing. We discuss the implications of these findings for culturally grounded health promotion, macro and mezzo social work, and Pasifika community practices and policy work with QTPI.
Congratulations to Tino in reaching this milestone in the PhD program!
