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FUTURE KIN // The Queer Birth Project

by katieadmin

The second exhibition of the Queer Birth Project, FUTURE KIN, was displayed this fall at Galleri Urbane.

FUTURE KIN reflects on contemporary LGBTQ+ families, envisioning new forms of kinship as a love letter to future generations. This exhibition explores the often-overlooked diversity of queer family structures through a dynamic mix of hanging fringe, neon sculptures, an interactive soundscape, glass mobiles, and video art. Unlike conventional family trees, which often adhere to hierarchical and gender-normative structures, the artworks in FUTURE KIN present kinship as dynamic constellations. These constellations emphasize non-hierarchical, gender-inclusive relations, challenging assumptions of heterosexuality, monogamy, assimilation, and biological ties. Blending artistic innovation with sociological research, FUTURE KIN offers reflections on evolving forms of belonging.

This exhibition is the second installment of The Queer Birth Project, a collaborative initiative by transmedia artist Liss LaFleur and sociologist Katherine Sobering. Based on original research with LGBTQ+ families, this work re-envisions artist Judy Chicago’s Birth Project (1980–85) and promotes a radically inclusive view of childbirth, reproductive justice, and family in a post-Roe era.

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The Queer Birth Project at the Nasher Sculpture Center

by katieadmin

The inaugural exhibition of The Queer Birth Project, a collaborative arts and research-based project that promotes a radically inclusive view of pregnancy, birth, and family building, recently opened at the Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas, Texas.

In 1981, feminist artist Judy Chicago posed the question: How do women feel about all aspects of birth? In the resulting Birth Project, Chicago conducted an original survey and then collaborated with needleworkers to create a series of artwork that celebrated “the birth-giving capacity of women along with their creative spirit.” Her work was pathbreaking in highlighting the importance of visibility and representation in feminist practice. Yet it also reproduced universalistic and heteronormative understandings of pregnancy, childbirth, and motherhood.

Forty years later, The Queer Birth Project revisits and expands upon this work by asking: How do queer people experience birth? Representations of motherhood and birth in western art and social science have long excluded the lives of lesbian women and gender nonconforming bodies. This project seeks to promote inclusion by sharing the birth experiences of queer (LGBTQ+) people in the United States.

Read more about the exhibition here.

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Projects

The Queer Birth Project

by katieadmin

With Liss LaFleur, this interdisciplinary research project seeks to promote inclusion by researching and publicly sharing the birth experiences of queer (LGBTQ+) people in the United States. The structure of this project is based on a re-envisioning of feminist artist Judy Chicago’s Birth Project (1980-85) and includes: a new national survey, a collection of visual artworks for exhibition, and a series of scholarly publications. Original data collection will be paired with archival research at the Schlesinger Library at Harvard University and the National Museum of Women in the Arts.

​For more information, please check out The Queer Birth Project website or our Instagram page.

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Teaching

Qualitative Data Analysis

by katieadmin

Qualitative research is foundational to the discipline of sociology. From ethnographers who immerse themselves in a particular social universe to scholars who explore cultural understandings and meaning-making through in-depth interviews, qualitative research is ideal for understanding nuanced social phenomena, explaining complex social processes, and developing and refining social theory. Much instruction in qualitative methods fails to include hands-on training with contemporary digital data analysis tools. In some ways, these tools have transformed the way that scholars analyze data. But they also present different practical, theoretical, and ethical issues in the process. This seminar fills this important gap by providing graduate-level training on both epistemological foundations of qualitative data analysis and hands-on instruction on how to code, analyze, and present qualitative research. In this class, students will become familiar with some classic and contemporary works of qualitative sociological research. Using these texts, we will consider the theoretical and epistemological issues involved in working with qualitative data and discuss narrative strategies in writing and argument formation. Students will also learn about contemporary best practices for coding and analysis using qualitative data analysis (QDA) software. We will follow a workshop-style approach to collaborative learning that is characteristic of qualitative methods training programs and labs.

This seminar is part of a sequence of qualitative methods courses offered in the Sociology Department at the University of North Texas. Students are encouraged to take both courses, but the order is flexible.

Syllabus:

  • Spring 2021
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Teaching

Qualitative Methods

by katieadmin

This course provides an introduction to research using qualitative methods. While much sociological research relies on data collected by others, this course provides insights into the theories and practices that guide original qualitative data collection on our social world. Students will begin by learning the principles of qualitative methods and research design, and then become familiar with common qualitative research methods, including ethnography, in-depth interviewing, focus groups, and content analysis. Throughout the course, students will have the opportunity to collect and analyze their own original qualitative data, with the goal of developing data literacy and becoming a critical consumer of data. We will conclude this course by considering the many uses of qualitative research methods outside the academy.

Course Objectives

By the end of this course, students will be able to:

  • Understand the purpose and value of qualitative methods
  • Become familiar with different methods in qualitative research
  • Collect and analyze original qualitative data
  • Develop data literacy and understand the constraints of scientific claims-making

Syllabi:

 

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News

Recent article in Insight Crime

by katieadmin

Check out my new piece with Javier Auyero: “Narcops: How Police and Drug Dealers Collude in Argentina,” which was published this month in Insight Crime, a non-profit journalism and investigative organization specialized in organized crime in Latin America and the Caribbean. You can also read it in Spanish here: “Polinarcos: La colusión entre policías y traficantes en Argentina.”

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New article in Qualitative Sociology: The Relational Production of Workplace Equality

by katieadmin

My most recent article, “The Relational Production of Workplace Equality: The Case of Worker-Recuperated Businesses in Argentina,” is now available Online First at Qualitative Sociology!

Work organizations are commonly studied as sites that produce and reproduce inequality. But we know much less about how organizations promote equality. This article examines efforts to broaden access to power, opportunity, and resources in Hotel Bauen, a worker-recuperated business that was converted from a privately-owned company into a worker-run cooperative. Drawing on extensive ethnographic and archival research, I analyze efforts to redesign and redefine work through collective decision-making, job rotation, and pay equity. The article concludes by identifying three mechanisms of equality—inclusion, opportunity distribution, and symbolic leveling—to theorize the relational production of workplace equality and complement the near-exclusive focus on inequality and its effects.

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New article in WOX: Watercooler democracy

by katieadmin

My most recent article, “Watercooler Democracy: Rumors and Transparency in a Cooperative Workplace” is now available at Work and Occupations!

This article examines how rumors impact democracy and transparency in a cooperative workplace. Although literature on rumors generally analyzes them as negative to workplace culture, the author argues that rumors constitute a critical aspect of democratic participation. Drawing on long-term ethnographic fieldwork in a worker-recuperated business in Argentina, the author shows how members use rumors to incite deliberation, participate in decision-making, question organizational policy, and oversee managerial authority. Although informal communication at work can create uncertainty, confusion, and concerns about efficiency, the author finds that rumors can also increase worker influence, encourage organizational accountability, and ultimately protect against the consolidation of power.

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New blog post in Panoramas: Collusion and Cynicism

by katieadmin

On a warm evening in February 2013, residents in Arquitecto Tucci convened to discuss their concerns about their neighborhood. Located on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, the once working-class neighborhood had grown significantly in recent years through the expansion of informal settlements. Paved streets and sidewalks now transitioned into muddy dirt roads. In these areas—many of which were prone to flooding—newer residents constructed simple concrete houses, most of which lacked access to municipal services like electricity, water, sewers, and garbage pick-up.

[…]

Read the full blog post in Panoramas.  You can also check out the article, “Collusion and Cynicism at the Urban Margins,” which was published in the Latin American Research Review in 2019.

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Teaching

Sociology of Work (Graduate)

by katieadmin

Work is a fundamental part of everyday life. Work not only ensures our collective survival, but also helps us define who we are as individuals and societies. Understanding the organization and effects of work is central to the study of sociology, from foundational theories to contemporary examinations of labor market transformation, social inequality, and social change. While not exhaustive, this course will introduce students to central debates in the sociology of work, including those that address alienation and deskilling, precarity and polarization, culture and change, the production and reduction of social inequality, and unemployment and technology. We will ask: What counts as work? What are the effects of work under capitalism? And how work has changed over time?

Throughout the course, we will read classic and more recent ethnographic studies to understand how work has been theorized, to consider how these theories have been applied in social science research, and to evaluate their strengths and weaknesses. The course is intended for graduate students and assumes a graduate-level understanding of sociological theory and methods.

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