Jersey Cosantino

Doctoral candidate and Mad trans oral historian cultivating oral history methodologies rooted in Mad Studies, Trans Studies, disability justice, healing justice, peer support, and anti-oppressive, intergroup dialogue-based pedagogies, frameworks, and praxis.
Syracuse University
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jersey-cosantino/
Jersey Cosantino (they/them), a former K-12 educator, is a doctoral candidate in Cultural Foundations of Education at Syracuse University, holding certificates of advanced study in womens and gender studies and disability studies. Jerseys scholarship resides at the intersections of Mad studies and trans studies and, utilizing disability and transformative justice frameworks, their research centers the experiences and subjectivities of Mad, neurodivergent, Autistic, trans, non-binary, and gender non-conforming individuals. Through oral history and autoethnography, Jersey seeks to construct Mad trans archives that create pathways and portals to Mad trans futures, imaginaries, and elsewheres. Using Mad trans methodologies that challenge sanism, ableism, and transmisia, Jerseys research confronts medical model discourses and the pathologizing gaze of the psychiatric industrial complex. Jersey identifies as Mad, neurodivergent, Autistic, queer, trans, and non-binary and is white with education and citizenship privilege. They are a co-facilitator for SUs Intergroup Dialogue Programs course Dialogue on Racism and Anti-Racism, a co-editor of the International Mad Studies Journal, and a consulting editor for the Journal of Queer and Trans Studies in Education. Jersey holds a masters degree in high school English education ('14) and a graduate certificate in mindfulness studies ('19) from Lesley University, and a bachelors degree in English and studio art from Wellesley College ('09). Additionally, for the past four years, Jersey has engaged in peer support work via an abolitionist framework as a volunteer call operator with the Trans Lifeline. You can access Jerseys most recent publications by following them on Google Scholar.

Experience

I am a doctoral candidate with master's in education and over 15 years of teaching and curriculum development experience. I have been an active oral historian and scholar since 2019. My dissertation will be completed and defended by summer of 2025 and will become a book that speaks to my oral history methodology and Mad trans archival work.

Services

Trainings and workshops; qualitative research and analysis; transcription; creating more accessible oral history practices; peer support and harm reduction trainings at the intersection of oral history work; introductions to intergroup dialogue pedagogy and practice, including trainings on facilitating dialogues, as applicable to focus groups or small group oral history practices; trainings specific to working with trans and queer populations, disabled populations, neurodivergent populations, Mad and psychiatric survivor populations (including folks currently institutionalized), and Autistic populations, particularly at multiply-marginalized identity intersections; conducting oral histories online; crafting interview questions with the needs of these populations in mind; trainings on conducting oral histories in ways that are sensitive to intersecting disability access needs; trainings and mentorship on navigating being a disabled oral historian, a trans oral historian, etc.; teaching courses in the academy and in the community and to an array of age groups and learners, including curriculum development; collaborations including oral history projects, grants, publications, research, etc.; oral history jobs - full time and consulting; archival justice, including via a Mad trans lens; copy editing; writing and publication; conference organizing and presenting; creative writing and Mad trans poetic transcription.

Languages

Regions Available for Work

Other Regions: U.S. Northeast and Eastern Canada are the closest geographical locations to me but I am available to travel as needed and I can also work remotely.

Specialty

I focus on developing and implementing oral history methodologies that amplify the voices, experiences, knowledges, and meaning making of Mad, Autistic, neurodivergent, queer, trans, and non-binary bodyminds at a multitude of identity intersections, inviting their narratives to operate in ways that challenge chrononormative time (including chronological time), rationality, linearity, and all forms of normativity that are rooted in anti-Blackness, ableism, sanism, coloniality, and white supremacy. My approach to oral history centers disability justice, healing justice, loving justice, and transformative justice frameworks, ensuring that bodymind wisdom, (re)memories, and knowings can be conveyed in ways that defy the limitations of discourse, itself, allowing bodyminds to tell their stories with or without words, and in reclamatory Mad, trans, Autistic, neurodivergent, crip, disabled, and queer ways. This work is innovative and seeks to expand the horizons of the practice of oral history while also operating within and deeply honoring the vast lineages of liberatory oral history work to which my own practice is indebted.

Purpose of Contact

  • I am available to answer questions, or provide mentorship to other oral historians
  • I am available for hire - as an oral historian, consultant, presenter, educator, or related services
  • I am available to collaborate - on research, community projects, artistic endeavors, or other joint undertakings with peers
Contact Jersey Cosantino
Scroll to Top