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Fox, Shannon Marion

Identity is complex. It is not a simple fixed or fundamental attribute (Clarke, 2009). Understanding, negotiating, and claiming one’s identity is challenging. This work is especially crucial for educators because our identities influence how we teach (Clarke, 2009; Palmer, 1997). As I have struggled with my own sense of identity, I was inspired to critically engage in personal identity work to improve my sense of self as a queer person and my practice as an educator, artist, researcher, and home economist. Throughout my research, I could not help but notice similar identity conflicts within home economics. Inspired, I set out to engage in critical identity work for myself. I also hope to inspire further identity work within the field of home economics. This paper is a critical, phenomenological, and transformative inquiry that explores the intersections of identity, queerness, and home economics through fashion and clothing creation. Employing a/r/tography as a methodology, I explored the research question, “In what ways can queer frameworks inform identity work within home economics?” with the intention of examining identity as a possibility, rather than a problem to solve. I sewed, embroidered, and wore a shirt I created from raw materials, documenting the process through a combination of photographs and reflective writing. I used “uniform” to metaphorically frame my shirt as a representation of individual and collective aspects of identity. My inquiry process was informed by six a/r/tographic renderings, queer theory, queer pedagogy, and queer world-making, as well as my own narrative writing from my teaching and lived experiences. Queer frameworks offer immense value for identity work within home economics. Through my inquiry, I deconstructed traditional ideas of “home” in home economics and investigated its relationship to heteronormativity and our sense of self. Queer frameworks offer alternative perspectives and possibilities with which to view ourselves and our relationships to others, our materials, and our environments. There is a great opportunity for home economists to refashion “home” through integrating queer theory, queer pedagogy, and queer world-making through fashion as an everyday practice to subvert normalized daily practices, imagine the world differently, and empower and affirm queer identities.

Text

University of British Columbia. EDCP 590

Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library

10.14288/1.0437724

Education, Faculty of; Curriculum and Pedagogy (EDCP), Department of

Graduate

DSpace