Jin Haritaworn | EUC | York University

Associate Professor in Gender, Race and Environment

Credentials

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

Research Keywords

Queer Theory; British Cultural Studies; Transnational Gender and Sexuality Studies; Critical Race, Ethnic and Migration Studies; Urban Studies; Queer of Colour Critique; Transgender Studies; Critical Intersectionality; Ethnography of Gay Villages; Media Ethnography; Queer Space; Pandemics; Affect; Mapping; Social Movements; Biopolitics and Necropolitics; Racial Capitalism; Criminalization; Abolition Feminism.

Graduate Supervision

I supervise students in the graduate program in Environmental Studies, Gender, Feminist and Women’s Studies and Social and Political Thought.

Contact Information

haritawo@yorku.ca

Research Interests

My research deals with landscapes that are shaped by racial and colonial capitalism. There, celebration and incorporation exist alongside pathologization and criminalization. For example, my first two books, The Biopolitics of Mixing and Queer Lovers and Hateful Others, 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.

Much of my research is collaborative. My two ethnographies of queer and trans Black, Indigenous and people of colour (QTBIPOC) communities in Tkaronto, called Marvellous Grounds and Taking Space, Making Space, are examples in point. They explored queer of colour maps and archives in Toronto and 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 many of my students and community members have contributed to can give you a sense of this: marvellousgrounds.com. In a similar spirit of collaboration, I co-organized the 2015 Critical Ethnic Studies conference as part of a collective of York faculty and students, as well as community members.

Research Projects

Subversive Performances of Quarantine: Organizing Across Differences at the Conjuncture of Protest and the Pandemic

Role: Principal Investigator

Funding: Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, Insight Grant

Duration: 2021-2026

Summary: This project explores the alternative strategies of safety that were innovated during the COVID-19 pandemic. It examines the practices of safety and survivance that have been forged in marginalized communities that were both disproportionately impacted by the virus and less able to adhere to official COVID rules and norms such as #StayHome. Using ethnography, interviews and focus groups, the study asks what members of marginalized communities were doing to keep themselves safe, and what potential these practices have born for sparking wider changes, at a moment of crisis where many were willing to explore new models of safety, transformation, and relating to other humans and the more-than-human world.

Taking Space, Making Space: Digital Maps by Queers of Colour in Toronto

Role: Principal Investigator

Funding: ERA / Ministry of Research and Innovation of Ontario, Canada

Duration: 2015-2021

Summary: The study explored collective experiences of belonging and displacement among queer people of colour who live, work or play in the gay Village or Toronto west end. Using ethnography, interviews and mapping, it shed light on alternative forms of taking space and making space. The project aimed to give individuals who are marginalized in dominant maps opportunities to represent their own sense of the urban environments that surround them, and to produce alternative forms of placemaking that have the potential to inform wider conversations about just and sustainable ways of sharing space in the global city.

Marvellous Grounds: Queer of Colour Formations in Toronto

Role: Principal Investigator

Funding: Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, Insight Development Grant

Duration: 2014 – 2016Visit the Marvellous Grounds project website.

Research Output

Monographs

Haritaworn, J. (2015), Queer Lovers and Hateful Others: Regenerating Violent Times and Places, London: Pluto.

Haritaworn, J. (2012), The Biopolitics of Mixing: Thai Multiracialities and Haunted Ascendancies, Aldershot: Ashgate.

Edited Collections

Haritaworn, J., Moussa, G. and Ware, S. M. (2018), Queering Urban Justice: Queer of Colour Formations in Toronto, Toronto: University of Toronto Press (first editor) (nominated for the Toronto Heritage Awards).

Haritaworn, J., Moussa, G. and Ware, S. M., with R. Rodriguez (2018), Marvellous Grounds: Queer of Colour Histories of Toronto, Toronto: Between the Lines (first editor) (short-listed for the Speaker’s Book Award by the Legislative Assembly of Ontario).

Haritaworn, J., Kuntsman, A. and Posocco, S. (2014), Queer Necropolitics, London: Routledge.

Haritaworn, J., Kuntsman, A. and Posocco, S. (2013), ‘Murderous Inclusions’, special issue in International Journal of Feminist Politics 15(4), December 2013.

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

Haritaworn, J., Klesse, C. and Lin, C.-J. (2006), ‘Polyamory and Non-Monogamies’, special issue in Sexualities: Studies in Culture and Society 9(5).

Journal Articles

Haritaworn, J. (2022), ‘From the Kitchen Table to the Streets: Queer of Colour Reflections on Racial Capitalism,’ response to the roundtable in the special issue ‘Sexualities and critiques of capital’, Women, Gender & Research 2022(1): 81-86 (scroll down to responses).

Haritaworn, J. (2022), ‘Riskante Migrantinnen und schützenswerte Bürgerinnen: Die Transformation der Sicherheit in der Konjunktur von Pandemie und Protest’ (Risky migrants and citizens worthy of protection: The transformation of safety on the conjuncture of pandemic and protest), special issue on Abolition in Behemoth 14(3): 25-46 (scroll down to articles).

Haritaworn, J. (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.

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

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

Haritaworn, J. (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.

Afonu, D., Haritaworn, J., Singh, R. (2018), ‘Von Archiven und alternativen Zukünften’, Neue Rundschau (summer issue on ‘Writing History’, edited by Sharon Otoo and Manuela Bauche): 132-138 (co-first author).

Bacchetta, P. et al. (2018), ‘Queer of Color Spacemaking’, Critical Ethnic Studies Journal 4(1): 44-63 (co-first author).

Bacchetta, P., El-Tayeb, F. and Haritaworn, J. (2015), ‘Queer of Colour Formations and Translocal Spaces in Europe’, Society and Space 5 (co-first author). An extract was published on the Society and Space blog.

Haritaworn, J. (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.

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

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

Haritaworn, J. (2008), ‘Loyal Repetitions of the Nation,’ DarkMatter 3 (special issue on ‘Postcolonial Sexuality’).

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

Haritaworn, J. (2005), ‘Am Anfang war Audre Lorde. Weißsein und Machtvermeidung in der queeren Ursprungsgeschichte,’ Femina Politica 14(1): 23-36.

Book Chapters

Haritaworn, J. (forthcoming), ‘#NoGoingBack: Queering Racial Capitalism on the Conjuncture of Protest and Pandemic,’ in R. Varghese (ed.), Sex and Pandemics, Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

Haritaworn, J. (2022), ‘#NoGoingBack: How to live with a virus, the queer way,’ in S. Thobani (ed.), The Deadly Intersections of COVID-19: Race, States, Inequalities and Global Society, Bristol: Bristol University Press.

Haritaworn, J. (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.

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

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

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

Paola Bacchetta, El-Tayeb, F. and Haritaworn, J. (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 (co-first author).

Haritaworn, J. (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.

Haritaworn, J., Moussa, G., and Ware, S.M., with Choi, A., Panag, A.K. and Rodriguez, R. (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 (first author).

Bacchetta, P., El-Tayeb, F. and Haritaworn, J. (2017), ‘Queer-of-Colour-Politik und städtische Gerechtigkeit’, in M. Azarmandi, N. Ha, Noa and V. Zablotsky (eds.), Decolonize the City! Dekoloniale Perspektiven auf die neoliberale Stadt (Decolonial perspectives on the neoliberal city), Münster: Unrast-Verlag (co-first author).

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

Haritaworn, J. (2016) ‘Hateful Travels: Queering Ethnic Studies in a Context of Criminalization, Pathologization, and Globalization,’ in N. Elia et al. (eds.), Critical Ethnic Studies, Durham: Duke University Press.

Haritaworn, J. (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.

Haritaworn, J. and Petzen, J. (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.

Snorton, R. and Haritaworn, J. (2013), ‘Trans Necropolitics’, in A. Aizura and S. Stryker (eds.), Transgender Studies Reader Vol. II, New York: Routledge, p. 66-76.

Haritaworn, J. (2013) [2011], ‘Reckoning with prostitutes: Performing Thai femininity,’ in R. Gill and C. Scharff (eds.), Postfeminism, Neoliberalism and Subjectivity, Basingstoke: Palgrave, p. 215-229 (2nd edition).

Recognition & Awards

2022 Dean’s Teaching Award, Faculty of Urban and Environmental Change, York University
2020 Speaker’s Book Award (short list), Legislative Assembly of Ontario, for the Marvellous Grounds anthology
2019 Toronto Heritage Award (nomination), for the Queering Urban Justice anthology
2017 University of California Humanities Research Institute
Residential Research Group on “Queer of Color Formations and Translocal
Spaces in Europe” (co-coordinator and fellow)
2016 York University Research Leader Award, Vice-President Research and Innovation, York University
2016 Dean’s Community Engagement Award, Faculty of Urban and Environmental Change, York University
2016 Dean’s Teaching Award, Faculty of Urban and Environmental Change, York University

Courses

Course Code	Title
ENVS 3010	Qualitative Methods
ENVS 3160	Race, Racism and Environmental Justice in Canada
ENVS 4300	Queer of Colour Art and Activism in the City
ENVS 5106	Critical Perspectives in Race, Gender, Sexuality and Environment