This thesis is a series of questions and design-led responses to explore queer connections and my own identity. Through reflections about my own queerness and history, questions emerged around the importance of intergenerational connection within queer culture, community, rights, identities, and space. I designed an opportunity for connection between different generations. Both a research probe and a prototype, an intergenerational LGBTQ+ pen pal program explored how to bridge generational gaps. Demonstrating through its formal and informal opportunities and barriers, the pen pal program created new connections and networks, while also revealing challenges to making connections and building relationships.
Design research led me to also question the process itself: what does it mean to be doing autoethnographic design work - to be a designer designing for myself, my friends, and my community? The work was, and is, personal and I could not separate my life from the thesis research. Furthermore, I believe the nuances revealed through my own experiences were integral in bringing the project to life. My autoethnographic design approach came to be defined as: embodied, nonhierarchical, a multiplicity, connection, intersection, and resilient. In evaluating and reflecting on the thesis process, I struggled to align the form and boundaries of my work against ‘the thesis.’ What is queer design and how can I use its approach to play with a transdisciplinary design thesis? In playing within the history of queer design and walking the line between design, art, and academia I’ve attempted to redraw the components and format of ‘the thesis.’
Intergenerational Work:
“aims to bring people together in purposeful, mutually beneficial activities which promote greater understanding and respect between generations and contributes to building more cohesive communities. Intergenerational practice is inclusive, building on the positive resources that the young and old have to offer each other and those around them.�
Age is a natural segregator. As elders age they become disentangled from younger people outside of their family. Beyond direct interactions, communication the foundation of any interpersonal relationship - becomes difficult between generations. Take away the traditional heteronormative family structure and the wall between generations grows. Add in familial homophobia and a rapidly evolving queer culture with a multitude of generations that maginifies the differences between queer generations and the wall seems insurmountable.
My research, like existing literature and research in this area, found that there is a wall between queer generations. What is the value of breaking this wall and bridging intergenerational queer connections? Research and experiences point to a multitude of possible positive outcomes including: increased awareness of past history and ability to learn from missteps, creation of interconnected movements and coalitions, positive identity development, potential for building culture, reduced isolation for seniors, and increased self esteem for youth. The majority of participants signing up for the pen pal program expressed interest in meeting people from a different generation to “gain new perspectives,” followed by to “grow my community.”
These findings collectively speak to and make up the overarching value of transfering “queer culture wealth” through intergenerational relations. “Wealth” in this context can be understood not in economic terms, but as the knowledge, love, and ways of being that constitute queerness. Borrowing from A.J. Greteman’s understanding of Michele Foucault, queer culture, “‘is a culture that invents ways of relating, types of existence, types of values, types of exchanges between individuals which are really new and are neither the same as, nor superimposed on, existing cultural forms.’”
This definition of queer culture speaks to the ways in which this addresses both an everyday experience and a multitude of experiences. There is no singular queer culture and there is no singular queer experience. And while that may at times reinforce the wall dividing generations through a focus on different identities and identity politics, I hope, argue, and show, that the diversity of queer culture can in fact, unite through its rich beauty and wealth.
How might we “come together in transmitting queer cultural wealth,” as this wealth is not transmitted naturally. The genetic family, the most common site of heteronormative wealth transfer, does not hold the same value in queer culture and can in fact become a site of tension or violence: “the gay and lesbian movement, like the disability movement, is made up of people who stand apart from the fate of their family members, and whose most intense oppression experiences may be at the hand of those same relatives.” Looking beyond wealth, to basic human rights, the genetic family still falls far short as a site of transmission: “Most gay people were born into a family. Usually the parent(s) were heterosexual or appeared to be so. This creates, immediately, the bizarre construction of a closed living system in which the parents enjoy rights (legal, social and the rights of self-perception) that one or more of their children will never enjoy.”
Because the typically heteronormative social structure of the genetic family so often fails to support queer kin, it becomes critical to look beyond the genetic family to other formal and informal spaces and community in order to intentionally transfer queer cultural wealth between generations. Although there may be broader acceptance and expanded digital information access in today’s world, there is still an evident hunger, especially from younger generations, to build direct relations with different generations. General access cannot replace the context and everyday stories that come from an interpersonal connection. Yet, despite the desire for establishing intergenerational relationships, this need has not been fulfilled. As Greteman states, “I have benefitted from the work of previous generations while simultaneously having to work quite hard to learn about and through those very generations.� Connecting with an elder queer without any intentionality seems to happen rarely, people of different generations inhabit different physical, and even digital, spaces. Yet, even when I was intentionally seeking out older queers they proved difficult to access: from 80 pen pal respondents, only 11 were over the age of 50.
The general invisibility of elder queers, and as such their relation to younger generations, points to a hole within queer culture. There is a demonstrated lack of both real life interactions within queer community and academic research at the intersection of age, sexuality, and gender. Traditionally these concepts are studied independently, leading to an absence of age in LGBT literature, exposing a direct and demonstrated opportunity to explore through this design-led research thesis.
How might we not only create the
intergenerational connections, but
the intricacies involved in order to
forward to ensure continual transm
opportunity for queer
t also explore and reveal
o propose further avenues
mition of queer cultural wealth?
Bibliography Bamford, Sally-Marie, Dylan Kneale, and Jessica Watson. “Intergenerational Projects for the LGBT Community: A Toolkit to Inspire and Inform.” ILC-UK, October 2011. Bohan, Janis S, Glenda M Russell, and Suki Montgomery. “Gay Youth and Gay Adults: Bridging the Generation Gap.” Journal of Homosexuality 44, no. 1 (2002): 15–41. Delany, Samuel R. Times Square Red, Times Square Blue. New York London: New York University Press, 2001. Farrier, Stephen. “Playing With Time: Gay Intergenerational Performance Work and the Productive Possibilities of Queer Temporalities.” Journal of Homosexuality 62, no. 10 (October 3, 2015): 1398–1418. https://doi.org/10.1080/00918369.2015.10613 61. Fobear, Katherine. “Beyond a Lesbian Space? An Investigation on the Intergenerational Discourse Surrounding Lesbian Public Social Places in Amsterdam.” Journal of Homosexuality 59, no. 5 (2012): 721–47. https://doi.org/10.10 80/00918369.2012.673942. Greteman, Adam J. “Generating Queer Generations.” In Sexualities and Genders in Education: Towards Queer Thriving, edited by Adam J. Greteman, 89–113. Queer Studies and Education. Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2018. https://doi. org/10.1007/978-3-319-71129-4_4. Guattari, Félix, and Gilles Deleuze. A Thousand Plateaus. University of Minnesota Press, 1987. McEntee, Kate. “Becoming Woke: Design Research And Embodied Practice.” Norway: Nordic Design Research, 2017.
Muñoz, José Esteban, Joshua Chambers-Letson, Tavia Nyong’o, and Ann Pellegrini. Cruising Utopia, 10th Anniversary Edition: The Then and There of Queer Futurity. 2 edition. New York: NYU Press, 2019. Nash, Catherine J. Queer Methods and Methodologies : Intersecting Queer Theories and Social Science Research. Routledge, 2016. https://doi. org/10.4324/9781315603223. Paulick, Sylvi. “Report of the Joint ILGA-Europe/IGLYO Age Project: Intergenerational Dialogue with(in) the LGBT Community,” December 2008. Potter, Charlotte, Sally-Marie Bamford, and Dylan Kneale. “Bridging the Gap: Exploring the Potential for Bringing Older and Younger LGBT People Together.” ILC-UK, October 2011. Puar, Jasbir. “Rethinking Homonationalism.” International Journal of Middle East Studies 45, no. 2 (May 2013): 336–39. https://doi.org/10.1017/S002074381300007X. Schulman, Sarah. The Gentrification of the Mind: Witness to a Lost Imagination. First edition. Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 2013. ———. Ties That Bind: Familial Homophobia and Its Consequences. Reprint edition. New York: The New Press, 2012. “The Art of Letting Go of Your Ego in the Design Process Ziqqsayshello.” Accessed April 1, 2020. http://ziqqsayshello.com/2018/05/letting-ego-the-art-of-letting-go-ofyour-ego-in-the-design-process/. Design Sojourn. “The Design Process Simplifed,” November 23, 2008. https:// designsojourn.com/design-processed-explained/.