Queering Urban Justice: Queer of Colour Formations in Toronto Jin Haritaworn, Ghaida Moussa, and Syrus Marcus Ware (editors), with Río Rodríguez Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2018 (ISBN 978-1-4875-2285-8)

Abstract

Queering Urban Justice: Queer of Colour Formations in Toronto is a painstaking and generative collection that situates the spatial and temporal legacies and continuing work of queer and trans people of color (QTPOC) in Toronto, with particular emphasis on Black and Indigenous queer and trans activisms. It's a collection with multiple methodologies that blend activist praxis with both academic theory and theory from grassroots-activist knowledge-building. Although queer theory and critical theory are cited consistently throughout the chapters of the book, they are tools used in service to activist praxis, rather than the other way around. Relatedly, the strength of this book lies in its collaborative praxis of putting it together, which Jin Haritaworn, Ghaida Moussa, Syrus Ware, and Río Rodríguez address in the acknowledgments and introduction. From here on I will refer to them as "the Collective," to highlight the collaboration as well as the specificity that not all four are editors and all have significantly contributed to shaping the book through decision-making about the collection as well as their own respective contributions. They write, "It takes a collective to collect work that is collective" (viii) and emphasize the commitment to collaboration throughout the chapters themselves. The range of approaches reflects this as well, with an interview, a roundtable, and several co-authored chapters. Indeed, less than half of the collected chapters are single-authored. This book will be crucial for college courses in gender studies, queer and trans studies, ethnic studies, Black studies, and Asian American and API studies. Queering Urban Justice is important reading for scholars and researchers in these areas of inquiry as well. It's useful also for activists transnationally; many cities struggle under globalized white supremacy and US-based, "one-size-fits-all" models, whereas all of the contributors to the book are highly specific in their analyses, so what resonates in different locales can be helpful. The Collective doesn't note this explicitly, so I want to highlight the important choice regarding which, among the eleven chapters, are the final two. The second-to-last chapter (10) critiques coming out as a required script of visibility and legibility that doesn't work for a lot of QTPOC and includes interviews with local and diasporic queers of color. The final chapter is on Indigeneity: where the movement has grown in its commitments and where it needs to further embed Indigenous perspectives in activism. "Coming out"-even the critique of coming out as a white, settler-