| Abstract: |
In recent years, there has been a dramatic increase in the number of book challenges in educational contexts in the United States. Books representing sexual and gender diversity have been particularly targeted, as have books by and about people of color. Further, many states restrict or censor curricula and discussions of sexual and gender diversity, as well as race, ethnicity, politics, and history. Inspired by previous scholarship on censorship describing it as a knot intertwining knowledge with power, we turn to three "knots" with respect to anti-LGBTQIA+ censorship: access, protection, and moral panic, all prominent themes in conversations--both mainstream and scholarly--about censorship. In these conversations, access to particular content is restricted under the guise of protecting youth, and in order to get this work done, a moral panic is induced. We argue, however, that censorship is less about restricting access to texts and curricular and conversational content and more about making sorts of places where certain people, even types of people, can exist and others cannot. The importance of thinking about censorship as placemaking is that it is not the only sort of placemaking available. Placemaking is contested terrain. Just as some people are making communities where some knowledge of gender, sexuality, and race are (un)knowable, (un)speakable, (un)intelligible, (in)actionable, and (im)possible, others are knowing, speaking, and acting possibilities into existence. Doing so, though, requires reflection on the present in relation to the past and future; it demands that we engage in deliberate placemaking. |