Practising Care Without Permission: Ballroom, Kiki, and Collective Survival
A public lecture on ballroom, Black queer community, and collective survival, that explores how we sustain care where none was promised.
This public lecture explores how people learn to take care of one another when support is unstable, uneven, or unreliable. Drawing on doctoral research and long-term community-based work with Black queer and trans communities, Vincent Mousseau focuses on care as something practised over time, shaped through relationship, attention, and shared responsibility rather than formal systems or guarantees.
The lecture centres ballroom culture as one place where these practices have been developed, refined, and passed on across generations. In ballroom spaces, care is learned by showing up consistently, staying through conflict and difficulty, and responding to what others need in real time. These practices are not abstract ideals, but everyday ways of surviving and sustaining one another under pressure.
Introducing the concept of speculative care, the lecture names forms of care shaped by uncertainty, where people act without knowing what will last or who will be supported in the long term. Moving between research, lived experience, and close attention to everyday practices, Practising Care Without Permission invites listeners to reflect on how care already circulates in their own lives and communities, often quietly and without formal recognition.
This event is a public lecture followed by discussion. No prior knowledge of ballroom or kiki culture is required.
Content advisory: This talk includes strong language and is recommended for those aged 16+.
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