TRASDEJ
Transatlantic Alliances between Sexual Dissidents for Environmental Justice
Project duration: 07/01/2024 - 06/30/2027
Principal investigator: Dr. Rubén Solís Mecalco (they/them), Prof. Dr. Maria do Mar Castro Varela (Supervisor)
Partners:
COLEGIO DE LA FRONTERA SUR (ECOSUR- San Cristobal de las Casas, Mexiko)
Abstract:
The environmental crisis has started to catch global attention, not only in a macro-political narrative but also among the local communities that are suffering its impacts in their daily life and where the development of megaprojects and agroindustry by international companies, numerous of them based in Germany, is still destroying local ecosystems both in the global North and South. This research project will focus on the cases of Germany and Mexico, both signed countries of the Paris Environmental Agreement. In this regard, there has been increasing interest in questions of environmental justice as well as post-colonial studies on the intersections between sexualities, ethnicity, and class and the study of sexual dissidents, not only in post-colonial contexts such as indigenous communities but also in marginalized milieus of Europe, where global migrants with diverse backgrounds and knowledge are reclaiming historical justice as a response to the violence and the misinterpretation of their cultural meanings. In this complex, diverse, and violent arena, the generation of non-hegemonic and horizontal alliances, avoiding vertical power inequalities and against multinational extractive companies, is part of the theoretical discussions, and a necessity for local activists. Against this background, the research study “TRASDEJ - Transatlantic alliances between sexual dissidents for environmental justice” focuses on the multiple strategies of political action of indigenous sex-gender dissidents from southern Mexico defending their territories and German queer activists for climate justice and sustainability. This will be, amongst others, useful to develop new perspectives on politics focused on climate change, environmental crisis, and gender equality.
The research will implement a multi-layered and unique arrangement of different qualitative methods. The methodology, which is detailed below, will enable the research to explore the socio-environmental strategies of queer activists and indigenous sex-gender dissidents belonging to different localities.
Funding: European Commission through HORIZON Marie-S-Curie-Postdoc International Program 2023
Keywords: (post)colonialism, global history, environmental regulations and climate negotiations, sociology, nature conservation, environmental/climate crisis, sex and gender dissidents, contemporary Mayans, environmental studies, queer ecology
Project website: https://trasdej.com/
Contact: rub.solis@ ash-berlin.eu
