Subversive Gazes, Fragmented Selves, and Spatial Contestations: Southern Queeroscopic Interactionism (SQIT) and the Reorientation of Black Queer Epistemologies

Southern Queeroscopic Interactionism (SQIT) constitutes an interdisciplinary theoretical and methodological framework that critically interrogates the intersections of identity, spatiality, and systems of power as they materialize in the lived realities of Black queer people in the U.S. South. Synthesizing insights from Black Queer Theory, Queer of Color Critique, Two Souths Theory, Critical Race Theory, Intersectionality, and Symbolic Interactionism, SQIT reconceptualizes the South not as a monolithic region but as a layered landscape of intersecting geographies, cultural productions, and racialized gendered economies of meaning. This paper theorizes SQIT as a queeroscopic methodology that challenges hegemonic constructions of Southern identity, foregrounds epistemic insurgency, and illuminates how Black queer Southerners produce knowledge, resist domination, and construct selfhood across stratified and often hostile terrains. By examining symbolic repertoires, spatial negotiations, and interpretive practices of marginalized subjects, SQIT offers a transformative reconfiguration of how sociocultural theory understands the South, identity, and queerness.