Banal Precarity: Performing Queer of Color Lives in Contemporary Times

Abstract

Queer of color lives are always lived in close proximity to violence and death. Said differently, minoritarian subjects are constantly navigating positions of precarity in order to continue living. Precarity, then, is banal. This essay examines the quotidian performances of minoritarian subjects who navigate precarity every day. Animating this analysis is the Pulse nightclub shooting—an event which highlights the close proximity of precarity, violence, and death to queer and trans people of color. Through a critical, performance methodological framework, I weave together the stories of 12 minoritarian subjects in Phoenix, Arizona, as well as my own, to highlight the ways precarious performances manifest. I argue performances of precarity are a structuring component to minoritarian life which hold implications for minoritarian safety, community, and belonging.

Keywords:

• Minoritarian performance
• precarity
• queer of color critique
• whiteness

Acknowledgments

To the ones we loved in Orlando and to the ones still dancing.

Disclosure statement

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

Notes

1 I use pseudonyms for all interlocutors and refer to their identities as they articulated them to me.

Additional information

Funding

Graduate College, Arizona State University.