PH.D GRADUATE JACK CARAVES presents for The Department of Gender Studies
Trans*Formative Spirituality in Trans Latinx Lives: Cultivating Spirituality, Resistance, and Hope on the Path of Becoming
Monday, March 13th
3:30-5pm
YRL Presentation Room
Description: Drawing on life history interviews and survey data with trans Latinx adults in Los Angeles, this talk examines how trans Latinx immigrants experience multiple forms of structural, legal, and interpersonal violence and antagonism throughout their lives. I focus on the importance of spirituality in trans Latinx lives and the connection, healing, self-determination, and self-actualization it provides amidst a society that marks them undesirable and disposable. Focusing on spirituality, I theorize the concept of “trans*formative spirituality” as a way of “doing” spirituality and “being” spiritual that occurs through the process of disidentification from family, religious, and cultural identity–and is informed by trans Latinx embodiment and consciousness. Moreover, Trans*Formative spirituality captures the internal and external transformations trans Latinxs go through as they engage in the labor of becoming.
Bio: Jack Cáraves (he/him/they/them) is a UC Chancellor’s Postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Gender and Sexuality Studies at UC Riverside. Previously, he was a Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellow in Latina/o Studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and an Assistant Professor of WGSS and Sociology at San José State University. He holds a PhD in Chicana and Chicano Studies from UCLA. He received his B.A. in Latin American and Latino Studies and Politics at UC Santa Cruz.
Jack 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 sexuality in shaping migration, family dynamics, identity formation, spirituality, and world-making for transgender Latinxs in Los Angeles. His work in the trans Latinx community began through a community-based participatory research project with the TransLatin@ Coalition that focused on the holistic health needs of trans Latinxs in southern California. Jack is currently working on his first book, Trans Power: Illegality, Identity Formation, and Spirituality in Trans Latinx Lives, which is under contract with Duke University Press.
Jack is also co-creater and co-host of the podcast, Anzaldúing It, along with Dr. Angélica Becerra—a podcast grounded in Chicana and Women of Color Feminisms and dedicated to navigating the borderlands of queer and trans Latinidad. With over half a million listens, the podcast has been used as a teaching tool for underrepresented students and has been featured on Hiplatina, Autostraddle, PRIDE.com, GOMAG, and was featured in the 2019 Google Youth Tech Summit.
Jack’s works has been published in The International Journal of Qualitative Methods in Education, Latino Studies, The Journal of LGBT Youth, the Association for Mexican American Educators Journal, Transgender Studies Quarterly and in the anthology: Queer and Trans Migrations: Dynamics of Illegalization, Detention and Deportation.
