Hal Kowalewski is a fourth-year sociology major who is interested in the study of disability and queer identity. Her honours research, under the supervision of Dr. Amy Hanser, focuses on the role of consumption in the construction of individual and collective queer identity. Using theorists such as Michel Foucault and Judith Butler, her research attempts to question the nature of identity and how our social positions shape the lives we live.
What was your project about? What are the main take-aways from your work?
My project focuses on how queer people reconceptualize and reassert their identity in response to rainbow capitalism. Rainbow capitalism–a marketing technique in which corporations co-opt the language and imagery of queerness–is a contentious topic within the queer community. While some people believe it is a valuable form of media representation, others think it is yet another form of marginalization. I previously fell into the latter camp. However, as I conducted this research, I quickly found that many queer people approach rainbow capitalism as an opportunity to assert queer identity in subversive ways. After in-depth interviews with members of the Vancouver queer community, I found that many people view themselves as active participants in the construction of a queer counterculture rather than passive recipients of rainbow marketing. In my thesis, I look at the study of queerness as a social category, the role of the queer consumer block, and the politics of consumer sovereignty in order to examine how queer consumption patterns have become an empowering tool of identity formation.
Honours Student Hal Kowalewski
How did you get interested in this topic?
I spent some time conducting research at the Saige Community Food Share, a Vancouver trans-inclusive community initiative. After only an hour of work there, I knew that I wanted to research the queer community further. I had never felt more at home in my community and in my own identity than when I spent time trying to understand it from a sociological perspective. Learning that other queer people around me had the same questions as I did spurred me to research the core questions of identity that seem to unite many queer people.
This question of identity led me to the ways in which we manifest our identities through physical objects. Consumption clearly plays a large role in how queerness is understood and represented: I wanted to understand why.
What was the most difficult part of this learning journey? What was most satisfying?
The most difficult part of this project was the pressure to represent my community accurately. Because I am speaking for an entire community, it felt particularly important to get every detail right. It was easy for perfectionism to creep in. However, when I could overcome this feeling of perfectionism, the desire to represent my community also led to one of the most satisfying aspects of my research. It was very fulfilling to give back to the community that shaped so much of who I am. I feel proud that I was able to produce work that is empowering for other people like me.
What skills did you develop or strengthen as a result of this project?
This project has taught me how to fight overwhelm. This is by far the largest project I have worked on to date and it felt impossible to tackle at first. However, as I worked on this project, I learned how to work steadily toward a destination by setting manageable goals and breaking big tasks into more manageable pieces.
What was your experience working with Sociology faculty on this project?
It was a pleasure to work with Professor Amy Hanser on this project! She shaped my thesis into what it is today and helped me work through the moments of overwhelm. I am also very appreciative of the lovely community that the honours program creates and the support that I had from the entire sociology department. I am appreciative of every professor who steered me toward relevant articles and was willing to answer numerous questions about my research interests.
