[csaa-forum] CSAA Online (Zoom) Seminar TUESDAY AUGUST 26th: Theorising 'ordinary wellbeing' for queer youth in suffocating conditions

[Whitney Monaghan]

Hi all,


Please join us next Tuesday August 26th for the Cultural Studies
Association of Australasia's monthly online seminar. This month we are
featuring early career researcher Dr James Gardiner who will discuss his
research on queer youth and wellbeing.


When: Tuesday August 26th, 6pm-7pm AEST

Where: Online


Please click this URL to start or join.
https://monash.zoom.us/j/89955449004?pwd=D6yRPFIe7ChY8op4CAZoreZkuXl2Rd.1
<https://www.google.com/url?q=https://monash.zoom.us/j/89955449004?pwd%3DD6yRPFIe7ChY8op4CAZoreZkuXl2Rd.1&sa=D&source=calendar&ust=1742344634010458&usg=AOvVaw1630WGXTY0EIFpydEKqACk>
 Or, go to https://monash.zoom.us/join
<https://www.google.com/url?q=https://monash.zoom.us/join&sa=D&source=calendar&ust=1742344634010458&usg=AOvVaw0UPvoCPz0IXrTbvSLKJLRL>
and
enter meeting ID: 899 5544 9004 and passcode: 379963


CSAA Online seminars run on the last Tuesday of every month, 6pm-7pm
(Melbourne time) via Zoom. All are welcome - please feel free to share with
your colleagues and networks.


best wishes,

Whitney Monaghan (CSAA Memberships Officer)


*Theorising ‘ordinary wellbeing’ for queer youth in suffocating conditions*
‘Wellbeing’ has become a keyword in popular and academic understandings of
young people. Queer youth, in particular, have historically been narrowly
represented as at-risk victims of high school bullying and mental
ill-health. Whilst scholars have proposed a counterapproach to studying and
representing queer youth, which I brand ‘queer thriving’, this impulse
generates a troublesome victim/thriving dichotomy – a dynamic that fails to
apprehend the complex political and economic conditions of the current
conjuncture. This paper explores how queer youth articulate and embody
wellbeing beyond a victim/thriving framework and considers what their
reflections reveal about their conditions of living at the present
historical conjuncture, keeping front-of-mind how these conditions shape
queer young people’s political horizon.
In theorising ‘ordinary wellbeing’, I examine how queer youth employ
practises of ‘everyday tending and tenderness’ in attempts to sustain life
and its meaningfulness amidst large-scale crises that they have limited
power as individuals, or as a social category, to transform on their own. I
argue that contemporary conditions generate a suffocating atmosphere,
defined by the culmination of housing, health, and environmental crises
alongside neoliberal logics of individual ‘thriving’ within a
cis-heteronormative world.
BIO: Dr James Gardiner is an early-career researcher focusing on issues of
wellbeing, youth, gender and sexuality, digital media, and participatory
methods.
---
WHITNEY MONAGHAN (she/her)
Lecturer in Film, Screen and Culture
Director, Creative Directions Festival

School of Media, Film and Journalism
Monash University
900 Dandenong Road,
Caulfield East VIC 3145
Australia

*Office:* Caulfield, B3.24
*Phone:* +613 99034221
*ORCID iD*: http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1348-2857

[image:
https://www.monash.edu/arts/media-film-journalism/creative-directions-2025]
<https://www.monash.edu/arts/media-film-journalism/creative-directions-2025>


Find out more at monash.edu/lgbtiqa <https://www.monash.edu/lgbtiqa>

I am proud to be a member of the Health, Safety and Wellbeing Network. Find
out more
<https://www.monash.edu/ohs/OHS-structure-responsibilities/OHS-responsibilities>

<https://www.monash.edu/ohs/OHS-structure-responsibilities/OHS-responsibilities>
Festival Coordinator
Melbourne Women in Film Festival <http://mwff.org.au>

*We acknowledge the Traditional Owners and Elders–past and present–of the
lands on which Monash University operates.*
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