Kevin Nixon

Kevin Nixon is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Anthropology and the Collaborative Graduate Specialization in Sexual Diversity Studies. Kevin obtained his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from the University of Waterloo, the latter in Public Issues Anthropology, a joint Master’s program between the Universities of Waterloo and Guelph. For his doctoral dissertation, Kevin is currently engaged in an ethnographic study of drag queens in the metro Toronto area, where he is concerned with understanding the potential effect(s) their performances may have on discourses of multiculturalism and homonormativity in Canada. Kevin’s research also examines how contemporary race, class, gender, and sexual politics in Canada structure and/or shape the social identities of drag performers as queer subjects/citizens.

As an anthropologist, Kevin’s research methodology is intersectional examining the race, class, gender, and sexuality-based identities of his informants through both participant observation and formal/informal interview methods. His theoretical orientation is an amalgamation of queer theory, post-structural feminist theory, psychoanalytic theory, and critical race theory. He has taught a course in “Culture and Sexuality” at the University of Waterloo and has assisted in the teaching of numerous anthropology courses both at the University of Waterloo and the University of Toronto. For his teaching at the University of Waterloo, Kevin was awarded the Warren Ober Award for Graduate Teaching Excellence in the Faculty of Arts.

Kevin has also acted as both a volunteer and consultant at various HIV/AIDS service organization throughout southern Ontario. His experiences as an HIV/AIDS outreach and prevention worker amongst men who have sex with men (MSM) have spurned his secondary academic interests in the gendering of HIV positive gay and bisexual men, in particular the relationship between risk behaviours and constructs of “masculinity.” Kevin is currently the course instructor for UNI256: Social Scientific Approaches to Sexuality.