Narrative Activism: Writing Desire for Injury-Bound Individuals

Abstract

such a range of examples. It is testament to the book’s methodological intervention: trans exploits might thus be seen as a term to capture the different creative and strategic responses to racialized and gendered forms of power, surveillance, and regulation. These responses may be embodied through protest, as in the case of Gutiérrez, or strategic advocacy, as in the case of Irantiorg in Johannesburg, or through the creation of art and technology, as in the case of UNSTOPPABLE, a collaborative project among activists, scholars, and software developers to create bulletproof clothing for Black people, particularly Black trans women, under the threat of US state violence. Across the different sites that Chen explores in the book, communities exploit the varying technologies that violently racialize and gender populations: they repurpose and retool available technologies, such as film, digital networks, and the nongovernmental organization (NGO) or nonprofit form, to challenge state power on multiple levels.