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CU in the City, Ottawa – Depressed Economies: Transgender Un/deremployment

November 16th at 7:00 pm at the The Bronson Community Centre (211 Bronson Avenue
The Nepean Room, 103).

CU in the City is a popular series of talks that shares invigorating FASS research in communities across Ottawa and Canada. The next edition of CU in the City features Dan Irving of the Institute of Interdisciplinary Studies. Dr. Irving will be discussing challenges faced by the Transgendered community with the current labour market.

Professor Dan Irving

Drawing from his qualitative research project on un/deremployment among trans* individuals, Irving will present the major issues that many trans* people face when trying to obtain and maintain work. Featuring excerpts from research interviews, Irving demonstrates the ways that trans* experiences urge labour activists to reflect on the significance of affective, or emotional labour in all sectors of post-industrial capitalism.   The personal experiences of trans* reveal the ways that gender normativity, mediated by whiteness, influence who is recognized as employable within a service relation based economy  geared to create positive feeling states among clients and customers.  The often unspoken and unspeakable feelings that particular bodies are worth-less on the labour market results in excluding particular trans* people from employment while marginalized others within the workplace. This exclusion has a debilitating emotional impact on trans* people and communities.

View the PDF.