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Jin Haritaworn

Jin Haritaworn

Associate Professor

Credentials

PhD (Sociology), London South Bank University
MA (Gender & Ethnic Studies), Greenwich University
BA (Thai & Development Studies), SOAS, London University

Research Keywords

Sociology & Cultural Studies; Urban Justice; Educational Inequalities; Transnational Race, Gender & Sexuality Studies; Feminist/Queer/Trans Of Colour Theories & Activisms; Biopolitics & Necropolitics; Violence & Anti-Violence; Queer Space; Criminalization & Pathologization; Affect; Temporality.

Jin Haritaworn

Contact Information

4700 Keele Street
Toronto, ON M3J 1P3

416 736 2100

haritawo@yorku.ca 

http://marvellousgrounds.com/

@marvellousgto

https://www.facebook.com/marvellousgrounds/?ref=br_rs

Research Interests

Jin locates their research and teaching in a tradition of activist scholarship. In this tradition, we attempt to put our energies and resources in service of the communities we are allied to. We seek to divest from the competitive, hierarchical, individualistic and exploitative values of the neoliberal University, while also sharing tools to survive and build community in it.

Jin’s research deals with landscapes that are shaped by racial and colonial capitalism. There, celebration and incorporation exist alongside pathologization and criminalization. For example, in their first two books, The Biopolitics of Mixing and Queer Lovers and Hateful Others, Jin explored how certain mixed-race and LGBT subjects became desirable in a context of war on terror, neoliberal multiculturalism and the global city in London and Berlin.

In contrast, Jin’s research highlights the real transformations that are also happening, and that are not easily assimilated. Their current project explores the alternative strategies of safety that are being innovated during COVID-19. It examines the practices of safety and survivance that have been forged by queer and trans Black, Indigenous and people of colour (QTBIPOC) and other marginalized communities, that are both disproportionately impacted by the virus and less able to adhere to official corona rules and norms such as #StayHome. Using interviews and focus groups, the study asks what members of marginalized communities are doing to keep themselves safe, and what potential these practices bear for sparking wider changes, at a moment of crisis where many are willing to explore new models of safety, transformation, and relating to other humans and the more-than-human world.

Much of Jin’s research is collaborative. Their last two projects, Marvellous Grounds and Taking Space, Making Space, on trans and queer of colour maps and archives in Toronto, were conducted in collaboration with several current and former York and FES students, including Alvis Choi, Mengzhu Fu, Ghaida Moussa, Rio Rodriguez and Syrus Marcus Ware. The blog that several students have contributed to can give you a sense of this: marvellousgrounds.com. In a similar spirit of collaboration, Jin co-organized the 2015 Critical Ethnic Studies conference as part of a collective of York faculty and students and community members.

Jin’s research has received several awards, including the York University Research Leader Award, the Early Researcher Award, a SSHRC IG, a SSHRC IDG, and a University of California Humanities Research Institute co-coordinatorship and fellowship.

Research Output

(2018), Queering Urban Justice: Queer of Colour Formations in Toronto. Toronto: Toronto University Press (edited with Ghaida Moussa and Syrus Marcus Ware).

(2018), Marvellous Grounds: Queer of Colour Histories of TorontoToronto: Between the Lines (edited with Ghaida Moussa and Syrus Marcus Ware).

(2014), Queer Necropolitics, London/New York: Routledge (edited with Adi Kuntsman and Silvia Posocco).

(2013), ‘Murderous Inclusions’, special issue in International Journal of Feminist Politics 15(4), December 2013 (edited with Silvia Posocco and Adi Kuntsman).

(2012), ‘Women’s rights, gay rights and anti-Muslim racism in Europe’, special focus in European Journal of Women’s Studies 19(1/2).

(2006), ‘Polyamory and Non-Monogamies’, special issue in Sexualities: Studies in Culture and Society 9(5) (edited with Christian Klesse and Chin-Ju Lin).

(2021), Intersectionality and Transgender Studies: From Margin to Centre. Free University Berlin (27-28 October).

(2019), Borders. Affects. Biopolitics. University of Copenhagen, Denmark (21-23 August).

(2019), Congress conference Women’s and Gender Studies – Recherches Féministes, Vancouver, BC (invited, 3 June).

(2019), Thinking and Working in, through, and with the German (Studies) Context, University of Alberta (25-26 April).

(2018), Keynote Plenary at American Sociological Association Preconference, Sexualities Section, 'Sexualities, Race, Empire', Philadelphia (with Rod Ferguson and Vrushali Patil), 9 August.

(2018). Keynote at Trans Matters, York University, Canada, 22 June.

(2017). Keynote at Feminist Research Symposium, Institute of Gender, Sexuality and Feminist Studies, McGill University, 6-7 April.

(2016), Keynote at Gender Research Conference g16: The National Gender Studies conference of Sweden, Linköping University, Sweden, 23-25 November.

(2016) Author meets critics, featured session at National Women's Studies Association, Montreal, 10-13 November.

(2016), Keynote at English Graduate Studies Association, York University,13 May.

(2016), Plenary at Trans Temporality, with the Marvellous Grounds collective, University of Toronto, 1 April.

(2015), Keynote at Transgender Studies, Turku University, Finland, 29-30 October.

(2015), Keynote at Conference for Graduate Student Research, Susan B. Anthony Institute for Gender and Women’s Studies at the University of Rochester, 19-20 March.

(2014), Keynote at Queer Migrations: Homeland Insecurities, Violence and Belonging, Tucson, Arizona, 30-31 October.

(2014), Plenary at Critical Race and Anti-Colonial Studies (R.A.C.E.), University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada, 17 October.

(2014), Plenary at National Association of Ethnic Studies, 42nd Annual Conference, Mills College, Oakland CA, 3-5 April.

(2013), Keynote at Wandel und Kontinuität heteronormativer Geschlechterverhältnisse (Change and continuity of heteronormative gender relations), German Society for Sociology, Women’s and Gender Studies Section, Hamburg University, 14-16 November.

(2013), Plenary at Critical Ethnic Studies, University of Illinois-Chicago, 19-21 September.

(2013), Plenary at Compelling Diversities, Educational Intersections: Policy, Practice, Parity, Gender and Education Association's biennial conference, London South Bank University, UK, 23-26 April.

(2012), Keynote at Race and Whiteness, Multicultural Centre in Stockholm, Sweden, 15-16 November.

(2012), Plenary at Decolonize the City, Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung, Berlin, 21-23 September.

(2011), Keynote at LGBT/Queer Studies: Toward Trans/national Scholarly and Activist Kinships: An International Conference, Syracuse University Madrid, Spain, 3-5 July.

(2010), Keynote at Queer in the Limelight, Åbo Akademi, Turku Finland, 8-10 October.

(2010), Keynote at Reinstating Transgression: Emerging Political Economics of Queer Space, American University, Washington D.C., 17-18 April.

(forthcoming), Article on the transformation of safety on the conjuncture of pandemic and protest, special issue on Abolition in Behemoth (invited and in review).

(2020), ‘#NoGoingBack: Queer leaps at the intersection of protest and COVID-19,’ Special issue on COVID-19, Journal of Environmental Media Studies 1(1): 12.1-12.7.

(2020), ‘On These Bones: The Queer Regenerations of the Toronto Gay Village Serial Killings,’ Topia: Canadian Journal of Cultural Studies 40: 15-41. .

(2020), ‘Queer Regenerations of Violence, from Berlin to Toronto,’ Spotlight on Queering Urban Studies in International Journal of Urban and Regional Research.

(2018), ‘Von Archiven und alternativen Zukünften’, Neue Rundschau (summer issue on ‘Writing History’, edited by Sharon Otoo and Manuela Bauche): 132-138 (with Dzifa Afonu and Raju Singh).

(2018) 'Queer of Color Spacemaking In and Beyond the Academic Industrial Complex', Critical Ethnic Studies Journal 4 (1): 44-63 (with Paola Bacchetta, Fatima El-Tayeb, Jillian Hernandez, SA Smythe, Vanessa Thompson and Tiffany Willoughby-Herard).

(2015), ‘Queer of Colour Formations and Translocal Spaces in Europe’, with Paola Bacchetta and Fatima El-Tayeb, Society and Space 5 (October issue).

(2015), ‘Decolonizing the Nonhuman’, in M. Chen and D. Luciano (eds), special issue on Queer Inhumanisms in Gays and Lesbians Quarterly 21(2/3): 210-213.

(2015), ‘Über die (Un-)Möglichkeit, die Bezie­hung zwischen Kolonialität, Urbanität und Sexualität zu thematisieren’, sub\urban. Zeitschrift für kritische Stadtforschung 3(1): 111-118.

(2013), ‘Beyond Hate: Queer Metonymies of Crime, Pathology and Anti-Violence’, special issue ‘Rethinking Queer Sexualities, Law and Cultural Economies of Desire’ in Jindal Global Law Review 4(2): 44-78.

(2011), ‘Queer Injuries: The Racial Politics of Homophobic “Hate Crimes” in Germany’, special issue on sexuality, criminalization and social control, Social Justice 37(1): 69-89.

(2011), ‘Queer Anti-Racist Activism and Strategies of Critique: A Roundtable Discussion’, special issue on Queer Liabilities of Queer Anti-Racist Critique in Feminist Legal Studies 19(2): 169-191 (with Tamsila Tauqir, Jennifer Petzen, Sokari Ekine and Sarah Bracke).

(2008), ‘Loyal Repetitions of the Nation: Gay Assimilation and the ‘War on Terror,’ DarkMatter, No. 3: Special Issue on Postcolonial Sexuality.

(2008), ‘Shifting Positionalities: Reflections on a Queer/Trans of Colour Methodology,’ Sociological Research Online 13(1).

(2008), ‘Masculinités queer, trans et post trans: les rejetons du féminisme, Interview with Carine Bœuf, Morty Diamond, Jin Haritaworn, Vincent He-say, Jean Bobby Noble and Stephen Whittle,’Cahiers du Genre No. 45, special issue edited by M.-H. Bourcier and P. Molinier, 85-124.

(2005), ‘Am Anfang war Audre Lorde. Weißsein und Machtvermeidung in der queeren Ursprungsgeschichte’ (In the Beginning, there was Audre Lorde: Whiteness and Power Evasion in Queer Historiography,‘ Femina Politica 14(1): 23-36.

(forthcoming), ‘Subversive quarantine: Queer leaps at the intersection of protest and pandemic,’ in S. Rayter and L.Z. Newman (eds.), Queerly Canadian: An Introductory Reader in Sexuality Studies, Toronto: Canadian Scholars Press (accepted, in preparation).

(2021), ‘Dreaming big in small spaces: Prefiguring change in the racial university,’ Chapter in S. Thobani (ed.), Coloniality and Racial (In)Justice in the University, Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

(2021), ‘Queere Nostalgie’ (Queer Nostalgia), in O.S. Nobrega, M. Quent and J. Zipf (eds.), Rassismus.Macht.Vergessen (Racism.Power.Forgetting), Bielefeld: Transkript.

(2021), ‘Queere Elternschaft’ (Queer Parenting), in V. Thompson and S. Schultze (eds.), Reproduktive Gerechtigkeit (Reproductive Justice), Münster: Edition Assemblage.

(2019), ‘Imagining Community: Kimberlé Crenshaw and Queer/Trans of Color Politics,’ in Gunda Werner Institute and the Center for Intersectional Justice (eds.), Reach Everyone on the Planet: Kimberlé Crenshaw and Intersectionality, Berlin: Heinrich Böll Foundation.

(2018), ‘Queers of Color and De(C)olonial Spaces in Europe’, in Paola Bacchetta, Sunaina Maira Marr and Howard Winant (eds.), Global Raciality: Empire, PostColoniality, DeColoniality, New York: Routledge (with Paola Bacchetta and Fatima El-Tayeb).

(2018), ‘Unkontrollierbarer Hass und wegwerfbare Kinder: Vom “Intensivtäter mit Migrationshintergrund” zum “homophoben Muslim”’, in I. Attia and M. Popal (eds.), BeDeutungen dekolonisieren: Spuren von (antimuslimischem) Rassismus. Münster: Unrast.

(2017), ‘Marvellous Grounds: QTBIPOC Counter-Archiving Against Imperfect Erasures’, in S. Chambers, T. McCaskell et al. (eds.), Any Other Way: How Toronto Got Queer, Toronto: Coach House Books (with Ghaida Moussa and Syrus Marcus Ware, with Alvis Choi, Amandeep Kaur Panag and Rio Rodriguez).

(2017), ‘Queer-of-Colour-Politik und städtische Gerechtigkeit’, in Azarmandi, Mahdis, Ha, Noa and Zablotsky, Veronika (eds.), Decolonize the City! Dekoloniale Perspektiven auf die neoliberale Stadt (Decolonial perspectives on the neoliberal city), Münster: Unrast-Verlag (with Paola Bacchetta and Fatima El-Tayeb).

(2017), ‘What’s Love Got to Do with it?’, in El, Meral and Fereidooni, Karim (eds.), Rassismuskritik und Widerstandsformen, Wiesbaden: Springer VS.

(2016), ‘Queere Liebe und rassifizierter Hass: Transnormativität und andere queere Regenerierungen’, in Vivar, María Teresa Herrera, Rostock, Petra, Schirmer, Uta and Wagels, Karen (eds.), Über Heteronormativität: Auseinandersetzungen um gesellschaftliche Verhältnisse und konzeptuelle Zugänge, Münster: Westfälisches Dampfboot.

(2016), ‘Beyond Hate: Queer Metonymies of Crime, Pathology and Anti-Violence’, in Elia, Nada et al. (eds.), Critical Ethnic Studies, Durham: Duke University Press.

(2014) [2011], ‘Integration as a sexual problem: An excavation of the German “Muslim homophobia” panic’, in K. Yılmaz-Günay (ed.), Karriere eines konstruierten Gegensatzes: Zehn Jahre „Muslime versus Schwule“: Sexualpolitiken seit dem 11. September 2001, Münster: Edition Assemblage, p. 115-134 (with Jennifer Petzen, co-first author).

(2014) [2011], ‘Invented Traditions, New Intimate Publics: Tracing the German “Muslim Homophobia” Discourse’, in C. Flood, S. Hutchings, Galina Miazhevich and Henri Nickels (eds.), Islam in its International Context: Comparative Perspectives, Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Press (with Jennifer Petzen) (reprinted in K. Yılmaz-Günay (ed.) (2014), Karriere eines konstruierten Gegensatzes: Zehn Jahre „Muslime versus Schwule“: Sexualpolitiken seit dem 11. September 2001, Münster: Edition Assemblage).

(2014) [2007], ‘Queer-Imperialismus: Eine Intervention in die Debatte über “muslimische Homophobie”,’ in K.N. Ha, N.L. al-Samarai and S. Mysorekar (eds.), Re/Visionen: Postkoloniale Perspektiven von People of Color auf Rassismus, Kulturpolitik und Widerstand in Deutschland, Münster: Unrast (with Tamsila Tauqir and Esra Erdem, first author) (reprinted in K. Yılmaz-Günay (ed.) (2014), Karriere eines konstruierten Gegensatzes: Zehn Jahre „Muslime versus Schwule“: Sexualpolitiken seit dem 11. September 2001, Münster: Edition Assemblage).

(2013) [2011], ‘Reckoning with prostitutes: Performing Thai femininity,’ in R. Gill and C. Scharff (eds.), Postfeminism, Neoliberalism and Subjectivity, Basingstoke: Palgrave (2nd edition).

(2013), ‘Trans Necropolitics’, in A. Aizura and S. Stryker (eds.), Transgender Studies Reader Vol. II, New York: Routledge (with Riley Snorton).

(2012), ‘Globalizing Sexualities’, in G. Ritzer (ed.), Encyclopedia of Globalization, Malden, Mass.: Wiley-Blackwell, n.p. (with Sandeep Bakshi, Adi Kuntsman and Jennifer Petzen).

(2011), ‘Colorful Bodies in the Multikulti Metropolis: Vitality, Victimology and Transgressive Citizenship in Berlin’, in T. Cotton (ed.), Trans-Migrations: Bodies, Borders, and the (Geo)politics of Gender Trans-ing, New York: Routledge.

(2011), ‘There Are Many Transatlantics: Homonationalism, Homotransnationalism and Feminist-Queer-Trans of Color Theories and Practices’, in K. Davis and M. Evans (eds.), Transatlantic Conversations: Feminism as Traveling Theory, Aldershot: Ashgate (with Paola Bacchetta, translated into Italian).

(2010), ‘Wounded subjects: Sexual exceptionalism and the moral panic on “migrant homophobia” in Germany,’ in M. Boatca, S. Costa and E. Gutierrez Rodriguez (eds.) Decolonising European Sociology, Aldershot: Ashgate.

(2010), ‘Sexualising the “War on Terror”: Queerness, Islamophobia and Globalised Orientalism,’ in Sayyid, S. and Abdoolkarim, V. (eds.), Thinking through Islamophobia: Global Perspectives, London: Hurst/New York: Columbia Press (with Adi Kuntsman and Jennifer Petzen).

(2010), ‘On the Depoliticisation of Intersectionality Talk: Conceptualising Multiple Oppressions in Critical Sexuality Studies,’ in Y. Taylor, S. Hines and M. Casey (eds.), Theorizing Intersectionality and Sexuality, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan (with Christian Klesse, Umut Erel and Encarnacion Gutierrez Rodriguez).

(2009), ‘Kiss-Ins, Demos, Drag: Sexuelle Spektakel von Kiez und Nation’ (Kiss-ins, Demos, Drag: Sexual Spectacles of Neighbourhood and Nation), in AG Queer Studies (eds.), Verqueerte Verhälnisse. Intersektionale, ökonomiekritische und strategische Interventionen, Hamburg: Männerschwarm.

(2009/2007), ‘Queer Mixed Race? Interrogating Homonormativity through Thai Interraciality,’ in G. Brown, K. Browne and J. Lim (eds.), Geographies of Sexualities: Theory, Practices and Politics, Aldershot: Ashgate (2nd edition).

(2008), ‘Gay Imperialism: The Role of Gender and Sexuality Discourses in the 'War on Terror',’ in E. Miyake and A. Kuntsman (eds.), Out of Place: Silences in Queerness/Raciality, York: Raw Nerve Books (with Tamsila Tauqir and Esra Erdem, first author).

(2008), ‘Intersectionality or simultaneity?! Conceptualising multiple oppressions,’ in E. Miyake and A. Kuntsman (eds.), ibid (with Umut Erel, Encarnación Gutiérrez Rodríguez, and Christian Klesse).

(2007), ‘Intersektionalität oder Simultaneität?! – Zur Verschränkung und Gleichzeitigkeit mehrfacher Machtverhältnisse – Eine Einführung’, in J. Hartmann et al. (eds.), ibid (with Umut Erel, Encarnación Gutiérrez Rodríguez and Christian Klesse).

(2005), ‘“Der Menschheit treu”: Rassenverrat und Multi-Themenpolitik im derzeitigen Multikulturalismus’, in M. Eggers et al. (eds.), Mythen, Masken und Subjekte:  Kritische Weißseinsforschung in Deutschland, Berlin: Unrast.

​​(2020), ‘Viewpoint: Queering Urban Justice: From Transitional Objects to Intergenerational Care,’ Focus: Who Cares? Urban Youth and the Right to the City. Discover Society Issue 79.

(Forthcoming), Haritaworn, Jin and Weheliye, Alex, ‘Ethnic Studies in Deutschland? Über die Grenzen und Potenziale der universitären Institutionalisierung von minorisierten Wissensformen’, in Ha, Kien Nghi, Ha, Noa and Mesghena, Mekonnen (eds.), Geschlossene Gesellschaft? Exklusion und rassistische Diskriminierung an deutschen Universitäten (Closed Society? Exclusion and racist discrimination at German universities), Berlin: Heinrich Boell Stiftung.

Recognition & Awards

  • Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Insight Grant
  • Early Researcher Award (ERA) by the Ontario Ministry of Research and Innovation
  • SSHRC Insight Development Grant
  • York University Research Leader Award by York Vice-President Research and Innovation
  • University of California Humanities Research Institute (UCHRI) Co-coordinator of Residential Research Group on Queer Color Formations and Translocal Spaces in Europe (with Paola Bacchetta and Fatima El Tayeb)Fellow at the Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies, Helsinki University, Finland
  • Fellow in Transnational Gender Studies, London School of Economics and Political Science, Gender Institute
  • Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) Postdoctoral Fellowship, Goldsmiths College, Department of Media and Communications
  • German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) Research Grant for Junior Scholarship
  • Dean's Community Engagement Award and Dean's Teaching Award, Faculty of Environmental Studies, York University
  • Academic Innovation Fund (AIF), York Unviversity
  • Ontario Legislative Assembly’s Speaker’s Book Award short-list
  • 45th Toronto Heritage Awards nominee for the Queering Urban Justice anthology (co-edited with Ghaida Moussa and Syrus Marcus Ware, with Gabriela Rodriguez)