This master’s thesis investigates contemporary political polarization in Germany through the lens of queer life worlds and their encounter with conservative–right milieus. At its center stands Mo, a queer, binary trans social worker living in a polycule, whose everyday experiences, activism, and fears of political backlash are documented in detail, alongside a traditionally structured, AfD-oriented family in rural Harz. By juxtaposing these two constellations, the project renders queer culture not only as a field of identity politics but as a lived social ecology—marked by chosen kinship, public visibility, humor, vulnerability, and political engagement—while tracing how trans lives become sites of contestation in current public discourse
Methodologically, the work is rooted in design-anthropological research. It combines long-term videographic observation with Culture Probes—open, exploratory tools for capturing everyday practices—and Story Listening, a qualitative approach that foregrounds empathic listening over interpretive dominance in order to surface values, contradictions, and affective structures within families and communities . These methods are extended through reception-oriented probes of social-media self-representation, in which external viewers reflect on curated online performances, allowing the study to compare self-images with lived realities and social readings.
Filmmaking functions here as an epistemic tool rather than mere documentation. The camera becomes a research instrument that produces knowledge through proximity, staging, rhythm, and montage, while reflexive field notes track the filmmaker’s own positionality as a queer researcher navigating opposing political environments. Visual outputs such as cognitive maps synthesize interviews, observations, and filmed probes, enabling relational analysis across families and political worlds . The resulting film does not seek reconciliation or closure; instead, it stages coexistence—placing queer comedy shows, activist spaces, and gender transitions alongside conservative rituals and family gatherings—to make visible how divergent realities overlap, clash, and persist side by side.
Miriam Hesse-Eppendorf: VERQUEERT – Relationen innerhalb links und rechts politisch orientierten Lebensrealitäten
Master’s Thesis Project 2025
Supervised by: Dipl.–Des. Christoph Schwendy, Prof. Konstantin Haensch
