Under the title I can see queerly now, I researched queer perspectives and roles of care, involvement, and togetherness in transformation- and sustainability-concerned project work by accompanying the Action for Sustainable Future (ASF) hub. “Seeing queerly now” plays with the vagueness of queer as an (un-)clear viewpoint that can(-not) be reached. When talking about queer perspectives, I like to start with the metaphor of looking through a kaleidoscope. It can be playful, seeing your ecologies in a fun way, yet it may also lead to catching a glimpse of a surprising effigy of reality that appears cracked or nebulized. These are the two elements of queer perspectives: On the one hand, celebration – cherishing marginalized experiences, fostering solidarity, care, and compassion, and centering joy. On the other hand, disturbance – challenging and dismantling power structures, resisting normativity, busting the apparent given, and providing alternatives. In my research, I balanced a fine line between seeing queering and queer perspectives as something beneficial for collaborative processes and acknowledging the resistance of queer against being utilized, instrumentalized, defined, or even understood.

Accompanying the ASF hub meant offering queer perspectives as points of view for all involved actors to take. They include multiple stimuli and angles, both new ones and ones that have always been there, yet that we might have forgotten. Taking queer perspectives and practicing queering within collaborative processes can make normative structures visible and flexible, it may help make sense of our ecologies collectively and individually and realize our common ground by coming together and becoming attentive to each other. I manifested the queer perspectives I explored in a publicly available audiovisual research notebook made up of weekly short videos.

At the end of the runtime of the ASF hub, I realized I might never come to fixed results on what queer perspectives on project work are, yet queer elements of project work did become discernible. Thus, instead of a conclusion, I am proposing a manifesto of a queer way of doing project work, opening up my research at the end of it. It is not to be read in chronological order, even though the reading flow is directed by the limitations of written text. I invite you to engage with the manifesto by, e.g., executing it, adding or removing things, distributing it, mixing its points around, or visualizing it; and, if you wish, let me know your thoughts. Which points do you like? Which do you dislike? What is missing? What could be left out or adapted? And how can this manifesto be implemented?

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The Queer Project Work Manifesto

Dream.

Embrace and plan failure.

Practice care and compassion instead of understanding.

Embrace and plan dizziness.

Seek joy and follow the process.

Commit to twisted and branched paths, and to getting lost.

Embrace not knowing.

Include sensations of your body and mind.

Disturb normative power structures.

Embrace transformation and change.

Include nothingness.

Celebrate marginalized experiences.

Slow down.

Remember your common ground with others.

Combine things that you do not think go together.

Ask for help.

Let go of all expectations. Use positive expectations of best-case scenarios to put you in a state of joy, and then let those expectations go too.

Let yourself be surprised.

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