The Resistant Body

The Resistant Body Abby C. Emerson (bio) This visual text was co-created with a nonbinary child. At the center is an outline of their body with quotes from their own moments of self-definition. They also contributed to the design and artistic choices of the piece. On my end, it is a form of literature review exploring the historicized creation of the gender binary and the deep ties that political project has to white supremacy (Bederman 1995; Schiebinger 2004; Schuller 2018). Surrounding their body are quotes from my reviewed texts arranged haphazardly in layers of white paint and black marker. These narratives are visible but somewhat difficult to read, similar to how these discourses are around us all the time, impressing upon young bodies and forcing them into constrained ways of being. They’re hard to see, read, and most importantly, resist. In addition to text drawn from academic sources about the ties between the gender binary and white supremacy, some of the text fragments are quotes from adults that question children’s capacities to define themselves as nonbinary. The artwork incorporates not just macro social narratives, but also the micronarratives from transphobic teachers, family members, and friends. The yellow halo reads as an exertion against all those narratives; a visual representation of the force nonbinary children are emanating in their resistance. Fluidity and movement that young children demonstrate as they move amongst genders and pronouns is often read as confusion when really it is a resistance to the sex-based paradigmatic narrative laid out for them. [End Page 170] Click for larger view View full resolution Abby C. Emerson. The Resistant Body. Acrylic and ink on paper. Abby C. Emerson Abby C. Emerson is an assistant professor in elementary special education at Providence College. Her research and teaching centers on anti-racist and abolitionist teacher education, a critique of whiteness in education spaces, parenting as a site of social change, and arts-based research methodologies. Previously, she was an elementary school teacher for ten years in NYC public schools. During that time she was named the 2018 National Association for Multicultural Education’s Critical Teacher of the Year. Her writing about teaching and learning can be found in Radical Teacher, Whiteness and Education, Review of Research in Education, and Bank Street Occasional Paper Series. She can be reached at aemerso1@providence.edu. Works Cited Bederman, Gail. 1995. Manliness and Civilization: A Cultural History of Gender and Race in the United States, 1880–1917. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Google Scholar Schiebinger, Londa L. 2004. Nature’s Body: Gender in the Making of Modern Science. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Google Scholar Schuller, Kyla. 2018. The Biopolitics of Feeling: Race, Sex, and Science in the Nineteenth Century. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Google Scholar Copyright © 2023 Abby C. Emerson