The emergence of the other sexual citizen: orientalism and the modernisation of sexualityстатья из журнала
Аннотация: Abstract Guided by the claims of the feminist and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender social movements and international human rights agendas, governments in late modern democracies have been implementing (or pressured to implement) new juridical frames to recognise sexual diversity. As a result, in the last two decades, gendered and sexual 'others' have been 'included' in citizenship leading to the formulation of what has been called 'sexual citizenship', propounding the formation of new sexual rights-bearing subjects. However, this seemingly respectable and progressive contemporary sexual citizen has become the benchmark against which all sexual subjects are measured, and involves a particular liberal self that has been constituted against a myriad of 'others' marked by cultural, religious and racialised differences. How has this 'sexual citizen' been constituted and how does it operate within the political field of struggles over sexual freedom and justice? This article explores to what extent the sexual citizen has been configured in Euro-American terms within political liberalism, and how colonial and orientalist ideas about sexual citizenship and democracy follow on from this restricted notion of the subject of rights. Keywords: sexual citizenshiporientalismhomonationalismqueer politics Acknowledgements The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Research Council under the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007–2013)/ERC grant agreement no. 249379. I thank Professor Engin Isin, who patiently followed the development of this article and offered many significant suggestions for improvement, and Professor Judith Butler, for her encouragement and insightful comments on previous versions of it. My gratitude extends to my colleagues of the Oecumene research group, who have discussed with me some of the ideas I present here. I am also grateful for discussions with colleagues during the Opening the Boundaries of Citizenship Conference (6–11 February 2012, The Open University), where I presented parts of this essay in its first stages. Finally, thanks to Jack Harrington and Angela Duthie for their help with editing. Notes 1. Heteronormativity refers to the naturalisation of normative heterosexuality and the gender binary on which heterosexuality depends as the standard norm that organises society. It describes a 'sexual order' organised around the deeply embedded assumption that heterosexuality is equivalent to 'the normal' and the consequent socio-sexual hierarchy that defines and marks all gender positions and sexualities in relation to the heterosexual norm. Heteronormativity is embedded in every social institution, at the level of actual policies, everyday practices, cultural imaginaries, enacted through manifold of heterocentric assumptions implicit in the ways social relations, practices and identities are hierarchically imagined. 2. Although there are substantial differences between the logic of othering typical of feminist and gay rescue narratives, the emancipationist discourse of feminism and the victimisation of 'other women', be they Muslim, Maghrebi, Latin American or Roma women, has still many similar points in common with the discourses in defence of gay and lesbian human rights (Bracke Citation2012, Haritaworn Citation2012). The 'globalisation of sexual diversity' (Binnie Citation2004) faces vexed debates and controversies that to some extent resemble those that were aroused when subaltern feminisms denounced the colonial logic of humanist 'first world' feminists for not being able to forge an alternative understanding of gender, and were therefore impotent to contest what Gayatri Spivak brilliantly synthesised as the enterprise of 'white men saving brown women from brown men' (Citation2010 [1988]: 49). 3. Incidentally, in Spain, the congressional deliberation on the 'Religious Freedom' bill has been delayed due to the vexed tensions that the debates on the hijab have brought to the fore. 4. In fact, we have contested meanings of the signifier 'queer'. For instance, when referring to the movement towards the nationalisation of the queer along my argument, in a more or less implicit way, the signifier queer evoked and was extensive of LGBT contemporary politics. This slippery character that I give to the term is not due to my own personal ambiguous or careless use of it. On the contrary, it is intended to draw the attention to the fact that the field of meanings of the signifier queer has effectively been marked by the alignment of the queer – in this context understood as queer community – with LGBT collectives. Many associations, in effect, have added the letter Q to their branding. Although still distinguished from other positions, with the addition of the 'Q', queers are aligned or conceived as part of the same movement, as if they were adhering and supporting its demands and politics. Obviously, this is a contested terrain, and in fact, it has been a contested terrain for many years now (in the early 1990s many prominent figures – Judith Butler, Eve Sedgwick and Teresa de Lauretis among them – were already disputing the normalisation of the queer). And yet, as long as 'queer' became more identitarian and normalised in many contexts, it has started to be popularly used as synonymous with gay and lesbian. 5. Both in the USA and across Europe as well as globally there are quite strong networks of racialised queer and trans activists drawing the attention to the pitfalls and contradictions of contemporary politically so-called queer stakes. For example, from the UK, decolonizequeer.org, gather a virtual community of queers against homonationalist, islamophobic and racist trends currently displayed within queer and mainstream LGBT politics. The Safra Project as well as x:talk, a space mostly dedicated to empower workers in the sex industry to 'encourage critical interventions around the issues of migration, gender and labour' (xtalkproject.net) add to the list. In Germany, we can mention GLADT, LesMigraS and SUSPECT (including the blog nohomonationalism.blogspot, active until 2011); in Belgium, Merhaba comprises 'women, men and trans-gender persons mainly with roots in the Magreb, the Middle East, Turkey and sub-Saharan Africa who feel attracted by persons of the same sex and/or question their own sexuality or gender identity' (merhaba.be). The queer migration research network reunites a network of scholars from the USA and Europe (mainly UK based) whose website 'is dedicated to providing a forum for scholars whose research particularly focuses on the intersections among international migration and LGBTQ individuals, communities, histories, cultures, and politics' (queermigration.com). Also in the USA, manifold of networks of queer people of colour (many of which are university campus based) have been flourishing in the last decade, addressing particular communities, such as Latino, Asian and African-American. A list of many different active networks can be found at: http://www.uic.edu/depts/quic/resources/queers_of_color.html [Accessed 12 March 2012]. Finally, anti-pinkwashing activism deserves in this context particular attention, including the following groups: Palestinian Queers for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions, Queers against Israeli Apartheid (Toronto), QUIT (San Franciso), Helem (Lebanon), Al-Qaws (Jerusalem) and Pinkwatching Israel, 'a global web-movement to promote queer-powered calls against Pinkwash and for BDS' (pinkwatchingisrael.com). 6. I take the term coined by Éric Fassin (Citation2010). 7. This new trend in politics is not exclusive of the USA. Actually, UK Prime Minister David Cameron has made similar strides in 2011 (see Atluri in this issue). 8. http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2011/12/178368.htm [Accessed 25 April 2012]. 9. http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/12/06/presidential-memorandum-international-initiatives-advance-human-rights-l [Accessed 12 March 2012 (my emphasis)]. 10. I realise that I am moving from human rights to citizenship rights in a rather rapid manner, but the fact is that in the case of matters sexual, governments incorporate human rights approaches to develop citizenship rights in their obligation to honour their adherence to human rights international treaties. As many authors have suggested, citizenship has incorporated human rights language (while the reverse is also the case) making it increasingly difficult to disentangle both languages (Nash Citation2009). This entanglement is the object of a rich and complex debate that I cannot enter in this article. 11. http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2011/01/155520.htm [Accessed 12 March 2012 my emphasis]. By the interplay among identifications and solidarities mobilised by the use of the language, the entanglement between progress, modernisation and imperialism is clear: America – reduplicated by the figure of Clinton as a metonymic voice for America – stands with the 'other gays' (those who are reachable only through travelling) and whose ideals converge with what America understands as progress. This progress that, firstly, has to be made in their societies, becomes in the following sentence the progress we all seek. Finally, progress is rhetorically universalised through a spatial metaphor in the last sentence of the statement, evoking the task of '…making the world a more just place…'. 12. See the report of the EU on Homophobia and Discrimination on Grounds of Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity in the EU Member States (EUAFFR Citation2009). 13. http://nohomonationalism.blogspot.com.es/2010/06/judith-butler-refuses-berlin-pride.html [Accessed 25 April 2012]. 14. See note 4.
Год издания: 2012
Авторы: Leticia Sabsay
Издательство: Taylor & Francis
Источник: Citizenship Studies
Ключевые слова: African Sexualities and LGBTQ+ Issues, LGBTQ Health, Identity, and Policy, Race, History, and American Society
Открытый доступ: closed
Том: 16
Выпуск: 5-6
Страницы: 605–623