Navigating Emotions at the Site of Racism: Feminist Rage, Queer Pessimism and Fire Dragon Feminism

ABSTRACT Understanding the emotional landscapes of communities and individuals outside of the metropole requires a close analysis of context-specificities and an appreciation of place-based, local knowledges. In this article, I employ a decolonising approach to expose racism and whiteness through centring the emotional experiences of an Asian migrant queer woman academic residing and working in a white, Anglo-Celtic Australian society. Using autoethnographic data derived from lived experiences, I reveal my encounters with two main forms of racism at the workplace: 1. casual, everyday racism; 2. and institutional, systemic racism. Drawing from a particular strand of feminist perspective that I have earlier developed, fire dragon feminism, the article explores the navigation of emotions in the face of racism and discusses the exercise of two particular fire dragon feminist superpowers of feminist rage and queer pessimism while inhabiting in the negative. The article ends on a resistance note on fire dragon feminist hopes for a reimagined future.