Stitched Ripped, Ripped Stitched: Crafting A Queer Utopia In A Post-Truth Paradise

Abstract

Join us and die or die and join us: there seems to be no way out of the current populist right-wing political climate in Northern America and (Western) Europe. Post-truths are used to further polarise individuals and/or groups and death has become part of a ‘feel good’ fiction. While politicians like Thierry Baudet and Donald Trump envision a ‘revived’ Western Paradise, the other is left depressed; failing to live within the capitalist narrative of positive straight continuity. However, instead of framing this state of depression and failure as inevitable, this thesis, using the work of Ann Cvetkovich and Jack Halberstam, conceptualises negativity and immobility as a way to deconstruct and re/think this positive straight continuity in favour of crafting something else: utopia. Through crafts as a re/claimed practice, this thesis looks at the way negativity can craft, stitch and rip, the ordinary everyday.