Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2024, English

For Jose Esteban Munoz, queerness is not yet here–it exists beyond the here and now in a utopia we must believe in and imagine before we can build it. The current spatial- temporal “here and now” is understood, in this dissertation, as the capitalist realism defined by Mark Fisher. Meanwhile, Gloria Anzaldua invites us to think about the consciousness that privileges indigenous ways of knowing and being, while recognizing the ways colonial logic has imprinted itself on our minds, bodies, communities, and spirits through mestiza consciousness and Nepantla. Bringing these two thinkers with me—my late queer, Latinx elders—I enter posthumanist, indigenous, and queer ecological discourse with Karen Barad, Donna Haraway, and Robin Wall Kimmerer. Munoz sees queerness as a practice of becoming, and I approach indigeneity in a similar way, focusing on agency rather than a neoliberal or colonial understanding of it through the language of the colonizer. Barad's conceptualization of agential realism offers a way to understand indigeneity beyond anthropocentrism, emphasizing the relationality between people and their ecosystems. This framework highlights how indigeneity is an active, reciprocal process shaped by our connections with the natural world. The goal of this project is to call for hope, a hope that requires discipline, imagination, and care. I aim to inspire some material action regarding land stewardship and the #LandBack movement by addressing Kimmerer's call for re-story-ation through literary analysis.

Committee: Adéléke Adéè̳kó̳ (Committee Co-Chair); Guisela Latorre (Committee Member); Paloma Martinez-Cruz (Committee Co-Chair) Subjects: Comparative Literature; Environmental Justice; Gender; Literature; Minority and Ethnic Groups; Modern Literature; Womens Studies

Ph.D., Antioch University, 2023, Antioch New England: Marriage and Family Therapy

This post-qualitative study branching from new-materialist, post-humanist epistemology and ontology examines relationality through the lens of three different theories: agential realism, John Shotter's communication theory, and relational mindfulness. These theories each describe the dynamics involved in relationships, how they each make sense of these dynamics, and what they entail for human relations. Using a post-qualitative diffractive methodology, this study examines these theories and how they intersect to bring about new insights in our understanding of relationships and how this information can support therapy practice. The results are a series of nine principles of orientation, which were applied to marriage and family therapy and the therapeutic encounter. I conclude with a discussion on historical and current work in the field of MFT that connects to these ideas and the possibilities for future directions.

Committee: Kevin Lyness PhD (Committee Chair); Sheila McNamee PhD (Committee Member); Jonathan Wyatt PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Communication; Counseling Psychology; Mental Health; Philosophy; Psychology; Social Work; Spirituality; Therapy