Jih-Fei Cheng and Claudia Garriga-López explore the importance of radical care work and the activism of queer and trans people of color in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic. Emphasizing the approach of “intravention,” or the pro-health and care actions of communities themselves the most at risk, Garriga-López and Cheng shed light on the deep community health work of protest, often underemphasized in discourse and the lauding of mutual aid efforts. They affirm the need for a broad movement to achieve liberation from institutional and socially sanctioned violence and show the need for radical and inclusive coalition-building to promote community health.
Claudia Sofía Garriga-López
Claudia Sofía Garriga-López is an assistant professor of queer and trans Latinx studies in the Department of Multicultural and Gender Studies of California State University, Chico, with a PhD in American studies from the Department of Social and Cultural Analysis of New York University. She is currently revising a book manuscript based on her dissertation, Gender for All, and serves on the editorial board for Transgender Studies Quarterly (Duke University Press) and Women's Studies Quarterly (CUNY University Press). Garriga-López conducted long term participatory research with trans, feminist, and queer activists and artist groups in Quito, Ecuador, and has considerable work experience in community health and advocacy organizations in New York City. Her scholarship and visual art have been featured in a number of publications, including the Global Encyclopedia of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ) History (Charles Scribner’s Sons, 2019) and Latinas: Struggles and Protest in Twenty-First-Century USA, as well as the Social Science Research Council’s Items blog. Garriga-López is the author of “Transfeminist Crossroads: Reimagining the Ecuadorian State” published in TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly (2016), and is also one of the coeditors for the “Trans Studies en las Américas” issue of TSQ (2019). Her scholarly work is grounded in a critical engagement with activism, public policy, and public health, as well as trans, feminist, and queer performance art and cultural production in Latin America, the Caribbean, and within people of color communities in the United States.
Latest posts
Just Environments
Hurricane Maria Exposes Puerto Rico’s Stark Environmental and Health Inequalities
by Alexa S. Dietrich, Adriana María Garriga-López and Claudia Sofía Garriga-LópezAs Puerto Rico faces hurricane-induced devastation, the “Just Environments” series publishes an essay by Alexa Dietrich, Adriana María Garriga-López, and Claudia Sofía Garriga-López situating the current catastrophe within a broader historical context. Viewing it as an unnatural disaster, the authors point to a confluence of postcolonial industrialization, lax environmental regulation, and the privatization of utilities, which have all contributed to the island’s deteriorating infrastructure. Moving forward, they advocate for sustainable economic development and reliable public services as means of strengthening already-existing resilient and adaptive capacities.
October 3, 2017