So this past week we have been reading a lot about place and space and how that intersect with national identity, ethnicity, race, class, gender, age, and sexuality. A couple of things I have thought were interesting were the ways in which we tend to de-politicize "homeplaces/homespaces," which I believe are personally some of the most political spaces in their attempts to resist. When I think of homeplace I do so similarly to bell hooks, that "homeplace" is a place of collective resistive space for those who are outsiders, not the normative nuclear white heterosexual patriarchal family structure. One of the greatest places I found my "homespace" was in the presence of my group of queer female friends in a place we deemed "The Apartment."
In my own life I am currently changing what I know to be my "homeplace" but find that it tends to revolve mostly around the people I choose to associate and become involved with. I am currently trying to renegotiate my "homeplace" in a community of mostly straight, white, working-class people. The place I find to be the most resistive to dominant norms is the bluegrass bar where most of my more progressive friends hang out. It tends to attract a somewhat diverse group of people who bond over the mountain atmosphere, music, drinking, and sometimes progressive politics. It is a comfortable place, one where people kick off their shoes and sit in front of a fire place, or kick up their heels on the dance floor to a number of bluegrass bands. While I am currently trying to create a new "homeplace," I find that it is a challenge at times simply because I tend to stick out like a sore thumb. My somewhat alternative look does not necessarily coincide with people's mountain gear, talk of hiking and skiing (which, I do not normally participate it), or the general mountain ambiance and decor in the bar. However, I feel very strongly about asserting my difference and queerness in the space and in the conservative community it is one of the only comfortable places to be "out." The people tend to be accepting and if they weren't I know for a fact a number of friends including the owners of the establishment would make sure to "go to bat" for those of us who are openly queer.
While this is my new experience, I want to focus on my old, prominent space of "homeplace" that was created by a group of mostly queer white womyn. While my girlfriend at the time is of mixed race and considers herself to be brown, she had graduated from the college where we all attended during my stint in "The Apartment" structure and thus, besides her we all identified as white. I choose to focus on this space because it provided me a sense of community built upon similarity of culture. For the most part we also listened to the same r similar music, and when we would gather in the apartment our friends would play their guitars and we would all casually sing along and play instruments to songs about feminism, otherness, and queerness. We bonded in this space and it truly provided me a sense of community, and family especially in regards to the world outside the apartment, which, was often brutal and painful. But it was not a perfect space either. We often had personality and interpersonal problems between members of the groups, we often spent so much time together involved in every activity we would become sick of each other and annoyed. We all varied on the causes we felt strongly about and although we all tended to be progressive politically we often disagreed about issues and ways to enact the politics we believed so strongly in. As any of my friends who will read this blog will probably agree-although "The Apartment" may have been our "homeplace" a place for mainly white, queer people to gather and find a sense of relief and community, it was also always frought with contention, difference of opinions, and different ideas about engaging in political discourse and activism. Thus, the space was political not only because the group retreated there in order to find a sense of community with others whose lives were marked by the institutions of sexism, heterosexism, racism, homophobia, as well as privilege but it was also political because the space was not utopian nor was it always completely comfortable.
"The Apartment" was my friend Gabi's apartment that she eventually came to share with another friend Reese. Gabi's girlfriend also often shared the space-so that it became a space made significant by the fact it was for queer people by queer people. And while woman was not assumed in the essentialist of biological sense of the term the biology of the people that mostly gathered were women. The small, midwestern, private, Christian liberal arts school we all attended was a residential campus and thus, we all except Gabi and Reese lived in dorm rooms and ate dinner in the school's one large dining hall, "The Caf." On campus most of the queer people tended to live in one specific dorm, and ate at one specific end of "The Caf" known as the "moonlight" or "romance" section. Being part of the queer community I too lived and ate int he specific sections. While certain amounts of community were also found in these marginalized spaces it was always in juxtaposition to the larger dominant oppressive ideologies and identities on campus. Although our campus tended to be somewhat open to difference, it was heavily Christian and heavily Lutheran, and we often felt the oppressive affects of the legacy in which our university was explicitly tied to. These affects translated to our everyday lives, through interactions with conservative Christians telling us we were going to hell, although we also happened to have a hugely progressive religion department, and a lot of queer people because of the draw to the music program. While we may have always bee dealing with racism, sexism, and homophobia, religious oppresseion etc in the larger world, our campus's push to try and diversify as well as Christianize put us in a place of "dual citizenship" trying to represent the other while being hated and discriminated against at times.
"The Apartment" was a typical college apartment. Sort of shabby, the kind of thing you expect with a month to month lease, mis matched furniture, a fouton in the living room purchased from Wal-Mart-the only place to shop in our small town. There were usually dishes in the sink, hair stuck in the drain of the shower, a glasses of water strewn about the space. It was located downtown a ways from the college only a block or so away from our local community co-operative market, where we would often purchase food to make dinner with each other. It was the second level right above a restaurant with a large unstable balcony, which looked over the main street of town. The smells and sounds of the restaurant often wafted upstairs and provided us only specific times we could vacuum and burn incense. We probably seemed to be living a mundane existence in comparison to the rowdy undergraduates who would drunkenly stumble passed "The Apartment." Although we did go to the bars occasionally we usually sat above the street on the balcony casually sipping hard cider, wine, and beer, some casually puffing away on cigarettes, music slowly humming through the patio doors and windows. For once we felt above the people that often wanted to do us harm, and harass our very existence, as well as simply enjoy each other's company. "The Apartment" often provided us a safe shelter from the streets where straight white people would maliciously torment my small group of queer non- gender or race conforming friends. More than once either my friends or I had been yelled at as we walked the main street of the town. "Dykes!" or "What are you?" people in the cars passing us would yell. When we could finally get to "The Apartment" we could rest from both the physical and emotional exhaustion of just being in the world and surviving that day.
While we felt ourselves to be inclusive we were often criticized for being exclusive because we were all "lesbians." This usually made us all chuckle, of the eight of us who gathered two were more transgendered female to male, two to three were bisexual and actively dated and slept with both men and women, one did not identify, one believed he was a lesbian trapped in a gay man's body, and two identified primarily as lesbian, and mostly we all identified as queer. In the vein of many queer communities with chosen families we called ourselves, "The Fam" and often referred to our brotherly and sisterly connections with one another. Several times our conversations even turned to the topic of our sexuality and our connections with one another. we often felt that our connections in some ways transcended the fact that we were queer to being simply about connections and personalities however, looking back I laugh at our naievete. I must certainly say that we were friends because we were queer and we were queer because we were friends, it was obvious in our interactions we were connected through identity, politics, and activism. We were not connected by some transcendent form of chemistry or even love but we developed these things with each other because of our positionalities both with each other and in the context of the larger world. Because we felt connected by something greater than identity it often allowed us to justify the exclusion of others. While I am not judgmental that we did this, I do look back on it now and surely think this was a part of what we were doing. Although I loved this group of people we were also exclusive out of our own comfort and safety with each other, which we did not wish everyone to be privvy to. We faced much criticism from the gay men in the larger queer community, as well as other queer women who mainly identified as bisexual who attributed our exclusiveness to the notion that we all identified and performed lesbian identities in a certain homogenous way. Besides assuming that we all identified and performed some version of "lesbian," they also attributed the fact that many of us were vegetarians to our sexual identity, as well as our involvement in activism. This was false for me, as well as others involved in the group because I had been involved in activism long before I interacted exclusively with this group of people, although I did become vegetarian because it seemed to make the most sense after becoming good friends with the group.
And while we connected over our progressive politics, activism, and our acceptance of each other we also heavily disagreed on some things. Conversations about abortion sometimes turned sour when some people in the group would suggest that abortion should be legal no matter what, while others would argue that there should be alternative and better options for women and children. Other sites of contention were transgender rights in the larger GLBT movement and the fact that four of us at some point attended the controversial Michigan Womyn's Music Festival. There were also minor dissonances in dietary decisions. Most of us were vegetarians although not all of us and sometimes there were arguments over the ethical lines of choosing to eat meat and the classist attitudes of vegetarianism and vegetarians. While we varied over some things greatly we also knew that as a general rule it was also one of the only places we could comfortably disagree and be left with at least new and different things to think about. There were also many times when we would sufficiently deny our differences and not bring them up in order to avoid conflict and confrontation and join together simply for company and companionship and the newest available queer film we could get our hands on. So the space was far from perfect. We were not perfect individuals, activists, and citizens and we often disagreed about what this meant anyway, but we were able to find a sense of home in each other and in "The Apartment" with each other. If nothing else it provided us a place to resist dominant norms as well as the outside world.
My "homeplace" in "The Apartment" was a place full of connection, hope and possibility it was not a utopian space. It was a space with differeing opinions, people, genders, sexual orientations, races, personalities, making it almost impossible to generalize about us and for us to agree on anything. However, in its imperfection we were able to create beauty, lasting memories and community and that made every second worthwhile.
In my own life I am currently changing what I know to be my "homeplace" but find that it tends to revolve mostly around the people I choose to associate and become involved with. I am currently trying to renegotiate my "homeplace" in a community of mostly straight, white, working-class people. The place I find to be the most resistive to dominant norms is the bluegrass bar where most of my more progressive friends hang out. It tends to attract a somewhat diverse group of people who bond over the mountain atmosphere, music, drinking, and sometimes progressive politics. It is a comfortable place, one where people kick off their shoes and sit in front of a fire place, or kick up their heels on the dance floor to a number of bluegrass bands. While I am currently trying to create a new "homeplace," I find that it is a challenge at times simply because I tend to stick out like a sore thumb. My somewhat alternative look does not necessarily coincide with people's mountain gear, talk of hiking and skiing (which, I do not normally participate it), or the general mountain ambiance and decor in the bar. However, I feel very strongly about asserting my difference and queerness in the space and in the conservative community it is one of the only comfortable places to be "out." The people tend to be accepting and if they weren't I know for a fact a number of friends including the owners of the establishment would make sure to "go to bat" for those of us who are openly queer.
While this is my new experience, I want to focus on my old, prominent space of "homeplace" that was created by a group of mostly queer white womyn. While my girlfriend at the time is of mixed race and considers herself to be brown, she had graduated from the college where we all attended during my stint in "The Apartment" structure and thus, besides her we all identified as white. I choose to focus on this space because it provided me a sense of community built upon similarity of culture. For the most part we also listened to the same r similar music, and when we would gather in the apartment our friends would play their guitars and we would all casually sing along and play instruments to songs about feminism, otherness, and queerness. We bonded in this space and it truly provided me a sense of community, and family especially in regards to the world outside the apartment, which, was often brutal and painful. But it was not a perfect space either. We often had personality and interpersonal problems between members of the groups, we often spent so much time together involved in every activity we would become sick of each other and annoyed. We all varied on the causes we felt strongly about and although we all tended to be progressive politically we often disagreed about issues and ways to enact the politics we believed so strongly in. As any of my friends who will read this blog will probably agree-although "The Apartment" may have been our "homeplace" a place for mainly white, queer people to gather and find a sense of relief and community, it was also always frought with contention, difference of opinions, and different ideas about engaging in political discourse and activism. Thus, the space was political not only because the group retreated there in order to find a sense of community with others whose lives were marked by the institutions of sexism, heterosexism, racism, homophobia, as well as privilege but it was also political because the space was not utopian nor was it always completely comfortable.
"The Apartment" was my friend Gabi's apartment that she eventually came to share with another friend Reese. Gabi's girlfriend also often shared the space-so that it became a space made significant by the fact it was for queer people by queer people. And while woman was not assumed in the essentialist of biological sense of the term the biology of the people that mostly gathered were women. The small, midwestern, private, Christian liberal arts school we all attended was a residential campus and thus, we all except Gabi and Reese lived in dorm rooms and ate dinner in the school's one large dining hall, "The Caf." On campus most of the queer people tended to live in one specific dorm, and ate at one specific end of "The Caf" known as the "moonlight" or "romance" section. Being part of the queer community I too lived and ate int he specific sections. While certain amounts of community were also found in these marginalized spaces it was always in juxtaposition to the larger dominant oppressive ideologies and identities on campus. Although our campus tended to be somewhat open to difference, it was heavily Christian and heavily Lutheran, and we often felt the oppressive affects of the legacy in which our university was explicitly tied to. These affects translated to our everyday lives, through interactions with conservative Christians telling us we were going to hell, although we also happened to have a hugely progressive religion department, and a lot of queer people because of the draw to the music program. While we may have always bee dealing with racism, sexism, and homophobia, religious oppresseion etc in the larger world, our campus's push to try and diversify as well as Christianize put us in a place of "dual citizenship" trying to represent the other while being hated and discriminated against at times.
"The Apartment" was a typical college apartment. Sort of shabby, the kind of thing you expect with a month to month lease, mis matched furniture, a fouton in the living room purchased from Wal-Mart-the only place to shop in our small town. There were usually dishes in the sink, hair stuck in the drain of the shower, a glasses of water strewn about the space. It was located downtown a ways from the college only a block or so away from our local community co-operative market, where we would often purchase food to make dinner with each other. It was the second level right above a restaurant with a large unstable balcony, which looked over the main street of town. The smells and sounds of the restaurant often wafted upstairs and provided us only specific times we could vacuum and burn incense. We probably seemed to be living a mundane existence in comparison to the rowdy undergraduates who would drunkenly stumble passed "The Apartment." Although we did go to the bars occasionally we usually sat above the street on the balcony casually sipping hard cider, wine, and beer, some casually puffing away on cigarettes, music slowly humming through the patio doors and windows. For once we felt above the people that often wanted to do us harm, and harass our very existence, as well as simply enjoy each other's company. "The Apartment" often provided us a safe shelter from the streets where straight white people would maliciously torment my small group of queer non- gender or race conforming friends. More than once either my friends or I had been yelled at as we walked the main street of the town. "Dykes!" or "What are you?" people in the cars passing us would yell. When we could finally get to "The Apartment" we could rest from both the physical and emotional exhaustion of just being in the world and surviving that day.
While we felt ourselves to be inclusive we were often criticized for being exclusive because we were all "lesbians." This usually made us all chuckle, of the eight of us who gathered two were more transgendered female to male, two to three were bisexual and actively dated and slept with both men and women, one did not identify, one believed he was a lesbian trapped in a gay man's body, and two identified primarily as lesbian, and mostly we all identified as queer. In the vein of many queer communities with chosen families we called ourselves, "The Fam" and often referred to our brotherly and sisterly connections with one another. Several times our conversations even turned to the topic of our sexuality and our connections with one another. we often felt that our connections in some ways transcended the fact that we were queer to being simply about connections and personalities however, looking back I laugh at our naievete. I must certainly say that we were friends because we were queer and we were queer because we were friends, it was obvious in our interactions we were connected through identity, politics, and activism. We were not connected by some transcendent form of chemistry or even love but we developed these things with each other because of our positionalities both with each other and in the context of the larger world. Because we felt connected by something greater than identity it often allowed us to justify the exclusion of others. While I am not judgmental that we did this, I do look back on it now and surely think this was a part of what we were doing. Although I loved this group of people we were also exclusive out of our own comfort and safety with each other, which we did not wish everyone to be privvy to. We faced much criticism from the gay men in the larger queer community, as well as other queer women who mainly identified as bisexual who attributed our exclusiveness to the notion that we all identified and performed lesbian identities in a certain homogenous way. Besides assuming that we all identified and performed some version of "lesbian," they also attributed the fact that many of us were vegetarians to our sexual identity, as well as our involvement in activism. This was false for me, as well as others involved in the group because I had been involved in activism long before I interacted exclusively with this group of people, although I did become vegetarian because it seemed to make the most sense after becoming good friends with the group.
And while we connected over our progressive politics, activism, and our acceptance of each other we also heavily disagreed on some things. Conversations about abortion sometimes turned sour when some people in the group would suggest that abortion should be legal no matter what, while others would argue that there should be alternative and better options for women and children. Other sites of contention were transgender rights in the larger GLBT movement and the fact that four of us at some point attended the controversial Michigan Womyn's Music Festival. There were also minor dissonances in dietary decisions. Most of us were vegetarians although not all of us and sometimes there were arguments over the ethical lines of choosing to eat meat and the classist attitudes of vegetarianism and vegetarians. While we varied over some things greatly we also knew that as a general rule it was also one of the only places we could comfortably disagree and be left with at least new and different things to think about. There were also many times when we would sufficiently deny our differences and not bring them up in order to avoid conflict and confrontation and join together simply for company and companionship and the newest available queer film we could get our hands on. So the space was far from perfect. We were not perfect individuals, activists, and citizens and we often disagreed about what this meant anyway, but we were able to find a sense of home in each other and in "The Apartment" with each other. If nothing else it provided us a place to resist dominant norms as well as the outside world.
My "homeplace" in "The Apartment" was a place full of connection, hope and possibility it was not a utopian space. It was a space with differeing opinions, people, genders, sexual orientations, races, personalities, making it almost impossible to generalize about us and for us to agree on anything. However, in its imperfection we were able to create beauty, lasting memories and community and that made every second worthwhile.
2 comments:
What is your definition of a Utopia? I can't tell by reading this, what made "The Apartment" not a Utopia.
I tend to operate under Thomas More's definition from his book Utopia. It is a society that operates perfectly, it is an ideal where everyone is socially, politically, and economically equal. I tended to view the apartment as a perfect space one where people were so similar and like minded that conflict never arose, which is the assumption of Utopian spaces generally. If everyone is equal problems will not occur and what I found was that this wasn't the case. What I actually found was something I feel was often better. It was a place of conflict and tension, which at the time kind of sucked sometimes, but in the end made it feel more realistic, deliberative, performative and real. I also feel though that at times people in the apartment tended to not always talk as freely and openly as I thought they would or should because they didn't want to bring this conflict or offend anyone or cause dissension in the community. Because it was a place of survival we often clung to each other because we needed each other and not because we agreed on stuff. Was it Utopian no, but it wasn't a complete dystopia either-a place that was somehow awful or complete imbalance of power. it was more a space of contradiction, issue and I felt this was ok. To some this may be a Utopia in a modified sense but to me it wasn't. It was something better, more real, and more necessary and relevant to what we needed at the time. it was a "homeplace" as bell hooks uses it a site of resistance a site we politicized not in its perfection but in our need to survive...i hope this helps.
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