Forging Queer Solidarities in Trinidad and Tobago and New Brunswick, Canada through Cellphilm Method

In this comparative study, we explore the ways eight queer university students from Trinidad and Tobago and New Brunswick, Canada, use cellphilm production (cellphone + film production + intention) to share their experiences, make calls for change, and forge solidarities across racial, cultural, and national contexts. Engaging in cellphilm production as a research method for social change, we ask: What are queer, trans, and non-binary students’ experiences in campus spaces? What are the commonalities and tensions that exist between their experiences? How might cellphilm production work to disrupt unsafe campus spaces and create transnational queer solidarities? Through cellphilm production, participants crafted narratives highlighting significant systemic barriers, and speaking back to micro and macro aggressions. Both participating groups expressed feelings of exclusion and institutional neglect and highlighted their university’s disregard toward accommodating physical spaces, such as washrooms, downplaying of verbal hostilities, and other microaggressions. Participants also noted that students were at the forefront of creating purposefully queer spaces. Our comparative study disrupts the erasure of the experiences of queer, trans, and non-binary university students in Trinidad and Tobago and New Brunswick and speaks back to hegemonic whiteness in the context of queer campus spaces in New Brunswick, Canada.