To be a Feminist Killjoy means…. to be willing to go against a social order, which is protected as a moral order, a happiness order to be willing to cause unhappiness, even if unhappiness is not your cause. — Sarah Ahmed, The Promise of Happiness (2010)
Stephanie Skourtes (she/her) is a qualitative social scientist, educator, and documentarian. She is a Western-educated, multi-ethnic, queer, cisgender lone-mother from the seat of colonial power (the U.S.). With a PhD in Educational Studies from the University of British Columbia, her work crosses the areas of gender and social class, youth studies, urban studies, and public health.
Her research expertise centers around gender and structured inequality, health and wellness related to marginalized women and girls living in urban spaces, and sexual and gender minority health. She has conducted feminist, ethnographic, and participatory community-based research with working-class girls living on the fringe; urban Indigenous women and girls; low-income lone mothers; youth in foster care; teen mothers; 2SLGBTQ+ street entrenched populations; trans and gender diverse activists; and women identifying individuals experiencing gender based violence.
She has a particular interest in merging the visual and artistic realms with social theory. Towards this end she creates media projects, documentary in form or content, that showcase marginalized voices and ideas as a kind of social praxis. As an educator and community organizer, Stephanie has taught and practiced critical pedagogy, popular education, and anti-oppression feminism from community to university levels. She lives with her two children on the unceded, stolen lands of the Coast Salish peoples, colonially known as Vancouver, BC.
