The Christian Summer Camp as a Location for Queer Theoretical Inquiry

This project presents a queer-theoretically informed analysis of the Christian summer camp environment, a minimally-researched recreational environment, relying in particular on Foucault’s understanding of surveillance and discourse, Butler’s concepts of performativity and intelligibility, Dyer’s conceptualization of queer futurity, and Messner’s identification of gender salience. After recruiting thirteen participants, twelve of whom worked at the same Baptist summer camp and one other who worked at a non-denominational Christian summer camp, each participant completed a short narrative discussing a gender-charged experience they encountered at camp. After this, ten of the thirteen participants agreed to complete interviews discussing those experiences further, as well as other topics surrounding how gender and sexuality were managed at camp. Findings were divided into three themes. The first theme foregrounds camp as a place where participants described acceptance and community as central pillars to the camp environment, while exclusionary practices complicated that understanding for many of the participants. The second theme highlights this exclusion and expands on who is excluded from camp and the methods of exclusion. The third theme discusses the responses and instances of resistance participants had to exclusionary camp policies, as well as the responses camp leadership had to violations of policy and instances of resistance. This has resulted in a better understanding of the locational salience of gender performance in the camp environment, as well as how gender and sexuality are taken up and negotiated on a personal and institutional level.

Name thesis:degree_name

M.A. Child and Youth Studies

Level thesis:degree_level

Masters

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Faculty of Social Sciences

Department dc:contributor.department

Department of Child and Youth Studies

Grantor

Brock University

Year dc:date.issued

2021

Author dc:creator

• Harding, Evan

• camp
• gender
• sexuality
• intelligibility
• queer

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/10464/15272

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:brocku.scholaris.ca:10464/15272