Abstract

In a contemporary academic landscape increasingly influenced by neoliberalism, this study highlights the enduring significance of university spaces for student queer communities as sites for both the reproduction of heterocisnormativity and queer community building. Within this context, the present research centers the embodied experiences of queer students to explore the presence and impact of power dynamics inscribed in academic spaces. Queer (Bell & Valentine, 1995; Johnston & Longhurst, 2010) and trans geographies (Nash, 2010) are at the forefront of this research due to their exploration of the tension between the body as a site of multi-scalar power dynamics and the intimacy of embodied queer emotions (Knopp, 2007). Ahmed's queer phenomenology (2006) is indispensable for its interpretation of orientation, disorientation, desire and embodiment as vectors of movement, action and experience in/of space. Focusing on two Montreal universities, the research seeks to answer a fundamental question: what does the embodied experience of queer students tell us about university spaces? This study uses sensitive and cognitive mapping (Gieseking, 2020; Olmedo, 2015) to center the embodied experiences of queer university students. Interpreted through the lens of queer phenomenology, the maps and qualitative interviews serve as creative research methods that contribute to the reconsideration of geography's theoretical and practical horizons. Key findings include unique campus trajectories shaped by the students’ identities, spatially perceivable tensions between the student body and the Administration, shared experiences of comfort and discomfort within specific contexts, and the utmost importance of student-led community spaces within universities.