Reading Trans Resistance and Care in Banana Yoshimoto’s Kitchen

Abstract

Banana Yoshimoto’s Kitchen is the subject of scholarly literature studying domesticity, subjecthood, young adult life, and urban placemaking in contemporary Japan. This paper looks primarily at transgender life making, care, and hybrid resistance and struggle through the character of Eriko. Using the frameworks and critical analysis of transgender Marxist theory, I analyze Eriko’s role in both the domestic sphere and the club where she works, finding that Eriko’s care work makes, shapes, and gives life to queer joy in otherwise bleak capitalist modernity.