Learning the desire-able: a queer material feminist inquiry of Vietnamese young people's engagement with alternative sexuality curricula

The absence of effective sexuality education and constraints in school and family spaces have shifted Vietnamese young people’s learning about gender and sexuality to alternative spaces. Informed by queer material feminist theories, this proposed research aims to examine how Vietnamese young people, especially Vietnamese LGBT+ youth, encounter and engage with alternative sexuality curricula mediated by the politics of desire and larger sociomaterial conditions. Using digital diaries and arts-based focus groups as research methods, I will work with young people from 16-21 years old in Vietnam to examine material-discursive-affective processes emerging from their entanglements with alternative sexuality curricula. Findings from the research will help develop gender and sexuality education practices that build on youth’s lived experiences and make visible the impact of intersectional inequalities for ongoing advocacy efforts in Vietnam and transnationally.