Trickle-Up Pedagogy and Queer Healing: Navigating Historical Trauma in the Neoliberal University

Abstract:This article theorizes trickle-up pedagogy and queer healing as oppositional to the neoliberal university's exploitation of historical trauma to meet its own "diversity" goals. Drawing from my experiences as an immigrant, raised-poor, queer woman of color in academia, I argue that when BIPOC women and femme educators teach about systemic violence, this can trigger intergenerational trauma, impacting our health. Meanwhile, institutional support for BIPOC women and femme faculty is lacking. Institutions of higher education largely benefit from the labor of BIPOC faculty, mobilizing capitalist and ableist logics that demand fast productivity in the name of "diversity," at the deterioration of our health. I propose what I call "trickleup pedagogy," influenced by Dean Spade's idea of "trickle-up" justice, as well as queer healing and spirituality as practices that refuse this extraction. While trickle-up pedagogy is invested in disrupting power dynamics in the classroom, radical queer healing and spirituality offer strategies to not only navigate and survive the neoliberal university but firmly teach in livable ways that nourish our bodies, minds, and spirits.