El sabor del amor y del dolor: violence, affect and the (trans)body in the Chican@ historical imaginary

El Sabor del Amor y del Dolor is a study of the representation of Transgender and gender non-conforming Chican@s and traces the absence and presence of this population in the Chicana/o Historical imaginary. I examine how the transgender and gender non-conforming Chican@ body complicates categories of gender, sex and sexuality in the fields of Queer, Transgender and Chicana/o Studies. Through a theoretical lens informed by Chicana feminist, Queer and Affect Studies I argue for the transgender and gender non-conforming racialized body as a pedagogical site for understanding how transgender and gender non-conforming Chican@s make the world intelligible for themselves. In my research I trace the affective strategies that transgender and gender non-conforming Chican@s utilize for survival in the face of harassment, institutional neglect and violence, while pointing to these strategies as possible sites of resistance. Building on the work of Queer Chicana Feminist scholars, I maintain that the transgender and gender non-conforming body confounds Aztlán’s masculinist and heteropatriarchal symbolic field of signification, therefore a new lengua and new symbolic field must emerge. This strategy represents “ el sabor del amor y del dolor” that springs from Pérez’s call for perverting of psychoanalysis, thereby positing a decolonial and perverse interpretive strategy to study the radically perverse. Borrowing form Emma Pérez’s Decolonial Imaginary, the dissertation has two “case study” chapters wherein the interpretive strategy el sabor del amor y del dolor is deployed. These two case study chapters include a reading of Emma Perez’s historical novel, Forgetting the Alamo, Or, Blood Memory and a “re-framing” of the life and death of Gwen Amber Rose Araujo. The dissertation concludes by returning to Paulo Freire’s formulation of pedagogy as an indispensible methodology for teaching values about what it means to live in this world and to relate to other human beings. Reflecting on the arguments made in the body of the work, this study breaks through, crosses, transgresses, and disrupts how transgender and gender non-conforming Chican@s are discursively constructed in Aztlán, I move conversation towards creating new solidarities and methodologies in the form of “Travesía Pedagogy”. Having discussed at length the impact of psychic and somatic violence that accompanies transphobia, homophobia and racism, I conclude with possibilities for healing. How do we circumvent the proliferation of homophobic, transphobic, and racist discourses in our worlds? What does it truly mean to move towards a world where Chican@s as a people do not hate ourselves or terrorize ourselves or each other both in the home and in schools?

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Educational Policy Studies

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2011

Author dc:creator

• Galarte, Johanna F.

Contributors dc:contributor

• Darder, Antonia
• Mayo, Cris S.
• Cacho, Lisa M.
• Perez, Emma M.

• Transgender
• Queer
• Affect
• Chicano Studies
• Pedagogy

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2011 Johanna F. Galarte

Language dc:language

en

Handle dc:identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/26393

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/26393