ABSTRACT

This article examines trans oral history within the current context of both increased trans visibility and neoliberal storytelling. We ask whether trans oral history projects simply exemplify a trans visibility that intensifies surveillance and neoliberal representational politics, endangering the most marginalized of trans people, or, rather, offer a different kind of political intervention, the careful gathering of trans narratives as a form of radical trans care. We explore the politics of visibility and transtemporal solidarity in a range of trans-specific and queer oral history projects unfolding in the US and Canada, including our own—the trans activism oral history projects at the LGBQT Oral History Digital Collaboratory (Toronto) and the Jean-Nickolaus Tretter Collection in Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Studies (Minnesota). In pursuing these questions, we examine the political implications of our trans archival and public humanities work through the lens of what Hil Malatino has recently described as an ethos of “trans care.” We offer a set of reflections, anxieties, and strategies that have guided us in pursuing transcentric public humanities work that resists neoliberal narrative arcs and pursues the creation of a usable past through an ethos of radical trans care and mutual aid. We conclude our essay with a set of observations, drawn from our own work as well as that of other queer and trans oral history projects, that speak to four elements of most university-community partnerships concerning oral history: research design, the interview, metadata and archiving, and public engagement. We argue that trans oral history projects, created in collaboration with narrators, community members, archivists, artists, and others, can create alternative visual and narrative structures that are created, circulated, and viewed within a network of mutual aid defined by an ethics of trans care, rather than extraction.

摘要

本文在跨性别知名度和新自由主义讲故事的当前背景下考察了跨性别口述历史。我们询问跨性别口述历史项目是否只是体现了一种跨性别可见性，它加强了监视和新自由主义的代表性政治，危及最边缘化的跨性别者，或者，更确切地说，提供一种不同类型的政治干预，将跨性别叙述的仔细收集作为一种形式激进的跨性别关怀。我们在美国和加拿大开展的一系列跨特定和酷儿口述历史项目中探索可见性和跨时域团结的政治，包括我们自己的——LGBQT 口述历史数字合作实验室（多伦多）的跨行动主义口述历史项目和Jean-Nickolaus Tretter 收集同性恋、女同性恋、双性恋和变性研究（明尼苏达州）。在追查这些问题时，我们通过 Hil Malatino 最近所描述的“跨性别关怀”精神来审视我们的跨性别档案和公共人文工作的政治影响。我们提供了一套反思、焦虑和策略，指导我们追求跨中心的公共人文工作，抵制新自由主义的叙事弧，并通过激进的跨性别关怀和互助的精神追求创造一个可用的过去。我们用一组观察来结束我们的文章，这些观察来自我们自己的工作以及其他酷儿和跨口述历史项目，这些观察涉及大多数大学与社区关于口述历史的伙伴关系的四个要素：研究设计、采访、元数据和存档，以及公众参与。我们认为，跨口述历史项目，