Make/ing Room for Living: Organizational Strategies in Transgender Activism

The aim of the project is to explore strategies taken when organizing trans activist work in a time when social justice work often relates to transnational discourses on human rights. The focus of study has been a specific case, Pakistan, and the point of departure has been the ways in which trans activists negotiate between regional, national and transnational discourses on the position of trans people in society at large, and the function of human rights rhetorics as a vehicle for social change.
The material for the study consists of both textual documentation – organizational documentation, grey papers, policy documents, media material and court cases – and of interviews with leaders of organizations and trans activists. The method is a combination of discourse analysis of texts and ethnography.