Anzaldúing it: podcasting, Pláticas, and digital Jotería counterspaces

Abstract

When we started the Anzaldúing It podcast in 2017, we were trying to find a healing space outside of academia to process our everyday experiences as first-generation queer Latina/xs in graduate school. We chose the medium of podcasting as our platform because of our shared experience of pláticas being transformative spaces of knowledge sharing, consciousness-raising, and connection. Drawing on the tenets of Chicana/Latina Feminista Pláticas and coupling it with jotería identity and consciousness, and literature on academic counterspaces we conceptualize five tenets that make up what we refer to as digital jotería counterspaces. As co-creators and co-hosts, we engage in digital pláticas to enact self and community care through co-learning and co-construction of knowledge, this digital presence affirms our commitment to centering queer and trans Latinx identity and consciousness. We share our pláticas with the public through the digital and host them on an online repository, and as a result, create opportunities for multiple pláticas and consciousness-raising to occur.

Keywords:

• Podcasting
• Latinx
• digital
• counterspace
• jotería
• platicas

Acknowledgements

First, we would like to thank our listeners—thank you for sharing digital space with us, without you, this would not be possible. We are also indebted to the editors of this special issue, you provided endless support and generous feedback that allowed us to make sense of and theorize the magic that is Anzalduing It, thank you.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Angélica Becerra

Angélica Becerra (she/her) is a visual artist and scholar of Chicanx and Latinx political graphics. Her work focuses on twenty-first-century digital arts, exploring the digital realm as a space of production, distribution, and reception of a new generation of artivism spanning national and transnational social justice movements. She is currently a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Center in the National Gallery of Art, Washington DC.

Jack Cáraves

Jack Cáraves (he/him/they/them) is an interdisciplinary trans feminist activist scholar and specializes in Latinx gender and sexuality studies. His research examines the role of gender variance, trans embodiment, and queer sexuality in shaping migration, family dynamics, identity formation, spirituality, and world-making for queer and trans Latinxs in the U.S. He is currently a Chancellor’s Postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Gender and Sexuality Studies at the University of California, Riverside.