Queer Histories Matter: Queering Social Studies in New Brunswick, Canada is a SSHRC (Insight Development Grant) & NBIF (Emerging Projects) funded research project that works with queer, trans, and non-binary youth (13-18) and pre-service teachers and allies to create media and materials that speak back to the erasure of LGBTQ+ people in New Brunswick Social Studies curricula and classrooms.

 

Through the creation and sharing of DIY (do it yourself) media productions (including zines, cellphilms (cellphone +film production) stencils, and engaging with the Queer Heritage Initiative of New Brunswick’s archival materials), as well as lesson plans and toolkits, we seek to queer the teaching of Social Studies in New Brunswick.

 

In this work, we acknowledge the ways in which colonization and settler colonialism disrupted existing gender and sexual diversity practiced by Two Spirited peoples in Wabanaki Territories, including Wolastokuk, where our study is located. We also acknowledge that the existing archives privilege the stories of queer white people, which we see as a limitation to our work. In queering the teaching of Social Studies in New Brunswick, we suggest that we must do so through an examination of intersecting issues, including race and class.