Ethical Relationality and Heterotopic Spaces in Schools

Abstract

This chapter takes up a particular Foucauldian analysis to address questions of queer and trans embodiment in schools. It particularly draws on Foucault’s concept of heterotopia, the space of other, and technologies or practices of the self. The question of how space and spatiality is made and remade through embodiment and social interactions is central to this chapter. Moreover, various strategies queer subjects use to transgress and resist heteronormativity and gender normativities, in the sense of expanding the limits of intelligibility and actively confronting homophobia/transphobia, are described and analyzed. Empirical examples are also given of how LGBTQ students constitute themselves, by telling the “truth” about their gendered and/or sexual self within the context of schools.