Dr. Nikoli A. Attai (he/him) received his PhD in Women and Gender Studies at the University of Toronto, a Master of Philosophy in Cultural Studies, and a Bachelor of Arts in Media and Communication from the University of the West Indies. He is an Assistant Professor of Ethnic Studies, focusing on Black queer and feminist studies. His first book, titled Defiant Bodies: Making Queer Community in the Anglophone Caribbean, published by Rutgers University Press, explores queer politics in Barbados, Guyana, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, and Toronto. Utilizing transnational feminist, Black queer studies, Queer Caribbean studies, and transgender studies frameworks, He examines how working-class queer and trans people are co-opting, re-imagining, and re-articulating space in these Caribbean sites that are often hostile for persons who fail to adhere to dominant expectations of legible gender and sexuality. He also considers how experiences in these sites allow us to better understand queer life in the Caribbean beyond narratives of mortality, disease, and a need to flee violence.

Dr. Attai has been working on several projects that study how prevailing notions of legitimacy influence people’s sense of belonging in the Caribbean and its diasporas. Another book project is a co-edited collection of essays titled Free Up Yuhself: Transgressive Bodies and Contestations in the Carnivalesque, and interrogates the multiple ways that people contest sexual and gendered expectations through their bodily performances across Caribbean and Caribbean diaspora carnival spaces. It is currently under peer review at the University of the West Indies Press. Other academic publications include an essay titled “Let’s Liberate the Bullers: Toronto Human Rights Activism and Implications for LGBT Activism” in the Journal of Eastern Caribbean Studies, and a co-edited essay (with Dr. Cornel Grey) titled “LGBT Rights, Sexual Citizenship and Blacklighting in the Anglophone Caribbean: What Do Queers Want, What Does Colonialism Need?” in the Oxford Handbook of LGBT and Sexual Politics. Another co-authored chapter, titled “Tales from the Field: Myths and Methodologies for Researching Same-Sex Desiring People in the Caribbean,” is published in Beyond Homophobia: Centring LGBTQ Experiences in the Anglophone Caribbean. This essay explores important theoretical, ethical, and methodological issues that researchers negotiate when conducting ethnographic research with same-sex desiring people in the Caribbean. As my cv indicates, I also have several other essays at various stages of the publication process.

Dr. Attai is also working on two queer archival projects in Trinidad and Tobago and Toronto. He is building the Cyrus Sylvester Digital Archive of Queer Trinidad and Tobago to catalogue 5,000 images, videos, and other ephemera collected from the 1980s to present. He is also a co-investigator with University of Toronto faculty members Dr TL Cowan and Dr. Jaz Rault on a project titled “Translocal Action Dialogues for Digital Archives: Exposure-Sensitive Methods & Ethics for Queerly Minoritized Materials” (TADDA) that will convene a meeting of queer community archivists from Canada, the United States of America, Africa, and the Caribbean at the University of Toronto.

At Colorado State University, he manages the Collab Lab, a collaborative research project inspired by the Queer and Trans Research Lab located at U of T’s Mark S. Bonham Center for Sexual Diversity studies that investigates the ways in which race, gender, and sexuality inform a sense of belonging in varied political, cultural, social, economic, and historical contexts in the US and beyond. Here he works closely with students by providing a space to nurture and inspire innovative and exciting research. Current projects include the Undergraduate Academy of Feminist Scholars (UGAFS) which provides training in transnational feminist research and students are now embarking on a study to document the experiences of trans and gender diverse students at the university. The Real Talk Academy recently provided an opportunity for Black/African American students to document and analyze their experiences at CSU. A report was submitted to the university administration that demonstrated a need for critical dialogue on campus to increase awareness about the issues that Black/ African American students face. Several recommendations have also been made for improving Black students' experiences and encouraging increased solidarity and accountability at CSU.

Dr. Attai is working on many other exciting research and social justice projects in Trinidad and Tobago.