My research in a nutshell
The climate crisis demands socio-political changes that vary in scale, context, and approach, yet remain a shared societal challenge. Building on the work of Collins (1986), Loick (2024), Muñoz (2019), and Ahmed (2006), this dissertation argues that queer perspectives are vital for addressing the pressing challenges of the climate crisis. It identifies meaningful intersections between feminist degrowth theory (Eversberg & Schmelzer, 2023), queer counter-communities (Muñoz, 2019; Evans, 2023), queer phenomenology (Ahmed, 2006), and transecology (Hazard, 2022; Hayward, 2011), offering interdisciplinary perspectives for climate change research and practice. Empirically, the project focuses on Berlin as a case study, drawing on expert interviews and focus groups with queer environmental initiatives. By integrating theoretical innovation with situated empirical insights, the dissertation contributes to developing an intersectional and epistemologically diverse framework for understanding and responding to the climate crisis.
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​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​Disruptive Presence or Queer Epistemologies ​​
A fundamental premise for analyzing queer perspectives in the context of the climate crisis is the recognition that all knowledge systems are partial and incomplete. This recognition calls for an openness to think beyond conventional frameworks (Collins, 1986), which increasingly appear insufficient to address the complex challenges posed by climate change and globalization. Within this space of epistemic limitation, queer perspectives offer alternative ways of knowing and being that open up new possibilities for transformation. I approach queer forms of resistance and care as practices that generate new forms of community and enact a relational subjectivity of both human and more-than-human relations (Eversberg & Schmelzer, 2023). Building on this foundation, I analyse how queer forms of community evolve through the lens of queer phenomenology, illuminating their potential to reconfigure dominant understandings of nature, sociality, and transformation.
Theory of Contra-Communities
Interdisciplinary feminist scholar Sara Ahmed introduced the concept of queer phenomenology (2006), in which she draws the reader's attention to the ways in which non-normative bodies and subjects “inhabit space” (pp. 1-4). Ahmed shows how social relationships are spatially arranged and how queerness disrupts and rearranges these relationships. Ahmed’s approach offers new perspectives on the orientation of gender, sexuality and race in spatiality. This unique orientation in space can result in the formation of counter-communities, that Loick understands as an epistemological practice (2024, p. 83). Counter-communities are “forms of life” that Jaeggi (2014) defines as “attitudes and habitual behaviors with a normative character that concern collective lifestyles although they are not strictly coded nor institutional binding.” (own translation, p. 77). In 1986, Patricia Hill Collins already pointed to the potential of knowledge and practices from the “outsider within”. Feminist Standpoint Theory (e.g., Haraway 1995; Hartsock, 1998; Collins, 1990) offers interdisciplinary derivations of the claim of superiority of the oppressed (Loick, 2024; Wylie, 2012). Importantly, knowledge does not result out of the suppression of groups itself but out of communities’ resistance (Loick, 2024). In reference to the statement of Ahmed (2006) that orientation of bodies is also an effect of accumulated histories (of oppression), I will give a historical outline of queer history and how queer counter-communities in Berlin have emerged (Shukrallah, 2024; Stryker, 2017; Gammerl, 2023; Jagose, 2017). By describing the uniqueness of Black womens’ narratives, Patricia Hill Collins disrupts dominant epistemologies and embraces intersectionality. The notion of sisterhood, described by Dill (1983) and Collins (1986), demonstrates how solidarity among marginalized identities, fosters alternative ways of knowing. Within queer narrative frameworks, these interpersonal relationships become vital modes of resistance, creating spaces of collective survival and affirmation beyond dominant structures.
Phenomenological Understanding of Queer
My understanding of queer in this dissertation refers to people outside of the heterosexual spectrum who identify as queer, having a gender queer identity. The term queer includes not only sexual identities, but also different gender identities and refers to LGBTQIA+. It stands for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Intersex, Asexual and other identities. Queer people can assign themselves to several identities and this can change again. Drawing on Sara Ahmed’s concept of queer phenomenology (2006), I approach queer not as a fixed identity category, but as a spatial, directional and relational orientation that is always a self-identification. Queer identities, as I understand them, are not singular or static; they are multiple, shifting, and continuously constituted through everyday practices. Following Judith Butler (1991), these identities emerge through performative acts, repeated gestures and social inscriptions that both resist and are shaped by dominant norms.​​