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Review: Transnational Queer Theory and Unfolding Terrorisms Robert Diaz Wayne State University, Robertgdiaz@Gmail.Com Wayne State University DigitalCommons@WayneState English Faculty Research Publications English 1-1-2008 Review: Transnational Queer Theory and Unfolding Terrorisms Robert Diaz Wayne State University, [email protected] Recommended Citation Diaz, R. (2008). Transnational Queer Theory and Unfolding Terrorisms. Criticism, 50(3), 533-541. Available at: http://digitalcommons.wayne.edu/englishfrp/2 This Book Review is brought to you for free and open access by the English at DigitalCommons@WayneState. It has been accepted for inclusion in English Faculty Research Publications by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@WayneState. TRANSNATIONAL Queer theory has always been at- tentive to often undertheorized re- QUEER THEORY lations between sexuality and cultural AND UNFOLDING citizenship. Recently, much of the TERRORISMS most exciting queer scholarship has Robert Diaz directed its attention toward an analysis of spaces outside of the United States and beyond the West, Terrorist Assemblages: Homona- focusing in particular on transna- tionalism in Queer Times by Jasbir tional communities affected by K. Puar. Durham: Duke University ever-expanding global capital and Press, 2007. Pp. 368. $89.95 cloth, imperialism. In an issue of Social Text $24.95 paper. (“What’s Queer about Queer Stud- ies Now?”), the editors suggest that a reinvigorated queer framework “insists on a broadened consideration of the late-twentieth-century global crises that have configured his- torical relations among political economies, the geopolitics of war and terror, and national manifesta- tions of sexual, racial, and gendered hierarchies.”1 In other words, a re- newed queer theoretical frame must thoroughly adapt to and expand upon the specifi c ways in which counterterrorism, mass consumer- ist culture, and battles for legal rec- ognition have compartmentalized nonnormative populations. This new queer work examines new forms of subjugation across na- tional borders and requires that we reevaluate sexual, gendered, and ra- cial politics in a global age. What iterations of queer culture are produced at this crucial juncture? How might a range of performance practices contest, negotiate, articu- late, and heighten these iterations? Examples of new work address- ing these kinds of questions include Criticism, Summer 2008, Vol. 50, No. 3, pp. 533–542. 533 ©2009 Wayne State University Press, Detroit, MI 48201. ISSN: 0011-1589. 534 ROBERT DIAZ Martin Manalansan’s Global Di- closer to the standards of norma- vas: Filipino Gay Men in the tive heterosexuality, fueled by hu- Diaspora and Gayatri Gopinath’s man rights discourses that in many Impossible Desires: South Asian Pub- ways mask the violence of neolib- lic Cultures.2 Both revisit diaspora eral capital’s spread.3 as a rich space from which queer Jasbir Puar’s Terrorist Assemblage: belonging could be imagined. This Homonationalism in Queer Times is revisiting is especially relevant a refreshing and much-needed given the expansion of transna- addition to this recent queer scholar- tional migration and labor. Spread ship. Like Manalansan and Gopi- across multiple locations and tem- nath, Puar studies “queer diasporas” poralities, “queer diasporas” create and their multiple performance their own cultural archives amidst practices. Expanding on Duggan’s efforts to survive and cope with the work, she maps out moments of everyday. Manalansan and Gopi- queer normalization and inclu- nath argue that, in addition to na- sion within U.S. dominant culture. tionality and ethnicity, sexuality is What is most salient about this an important site for understand- book, however, is that it focuses on ing practices of diasporic belonging. the ways in which sexuality aids in New queer work also reexamines policing appropriate forms of U.S. the changing relationship between citizenship and diasporic identity sexual minorities and heteronor- during the current “war on terror.” mative culture. Could sexual mi- The author examines a collection of norities foster, rather than resist, examples ranging from South Park sexual, gendered, and racial oppres- episodes, to photographs from Abu sions? In The Twilight of Equality, Ghraib, to the Lawrence vs. Texas Lisa Duggan analyzes the many ruling that struck down the Texas ways that limited representations sodomy law by arguing that consen- of lesbian and gay culture have sual sex was protected as “private.” become so normalized—and in a Using these examples, she creates a sense evacuated of a contestatory complex theoretical approach to politics—by a mostly white, up- analyzing the ways in which sexual- wardly mobile, gay population that ity has been mobilized by the United has demanded legal recognition States after September 11th in order through gay marriage. This nor- to demonstrate the country’s “excep- malization is compounded by the tionalism.” Puar takes aim at “excep- demands of a growing consumer tionalism” because it allows the class that requires queer represen- United States to set itself apart from tation adequate for consumption. other more “barbaric” (i.e., nonsec- Coining the term “homonormativ- ular, Islamic, and “fundamentalist”) ity,” Duggan describes the move- nation-states and cultures. She ar- ment of lesbian and gay politics gues that exceptionalism also helps ON JASBIR K. PUAR’S TERRORIST ASSEMBLAGES 535 to produce a continual state of para- of sexual normalization that accepts noia that justifi es the complex meth- particular forms of homosexuality odologies needed to “fi ght” the war in order to foster American empire: on terror. Her argument is essential “[T]his brand of homosexuality op- for critics looking for a way to bet- erates as a regulatory script not ter understand the linkages between only of normative gayness, queer- sexuality and antiterrorism. Puar ness, or homosexuality, but also of suggests that exceptionalism serves racial and national norms that re- as a strategic and effective means of inforce these subjects” (2). Although furthering violence against postcolo- the critique of structures of state nial populations by legitimizing sec- power such as the military is unsur- ularism as the key ethical standard of prising, what is refreshing about communities in the global north. It is Puar’s beginning is that it also takes precisely these secularist values that aim at a particular strand of queer make the United States more “pro- theory that reiterates a fetishization gressive,” and what arguably makes of queer exceptionality as always al- the country’s population more de- ready liberatory or always already serving of biopolitical preservation based on a transgressive difference. than ethnic and religious minorities This fetishization in the end elides within and outside its borders. the many ways that queer popula- Signifi cantly, Puar shows how tions are also separated by multiple queer politics can be fueled by allegiances. Thus, aside from an regulatory rather than liberatory automatic assumption of “queer” purposes. In her introduction as nonnormative, Puar asks how (“Homonationalism and Biopoli- might this term be further compli- tics”), Puar notes that government cated by historicizing queerness policies around terrorism and aca- within a U.S. context? She argues demics writing about these policies that layered racial and national af- produce a version of queerness that fi liations are most legible at mo- abjects racial and national minori- ments when the nation-state needs ties. They do so by acquiescing to to mark some bodies as terrorist to what Rey Chow defi nes as the “as- make these subjects susceptible to cendancy of whiteness,” or the mobi- methods of surveillance and con- lizing of cultural difference to serve trol. Homonationalism is exceed- the racially dominant population in ingly present as the nation starts to the United States.4 Key to this abject- deploy more networked technolo- ing process is the valorization of sec- gies of policing justifi ed by interna- ularism I mentioned. Puar sees the tional attempts to thwart terrorism. heightening of secularism as indica- The fi rst chapter expands on tive of “homonationalistic” impulses homonationalism. Puar traces the motivated by antiterrorism. She de- rhetorical strategies deployed by les- fi nes “homonationalism” as a form bian and gay tourist organizations, 536 ROBERT DIAZ feminists writing about the Middle has become a central characteristic East, and the cartoon show South for the sense of queer respectability Park. Although these organizations in the United States. This leads to and individuals seem to advocate the question, what about other sub- for universal human rights, they also jects who do not fi t this acceptable problematically rely on particular iteration of lesbian or gay culture? In markers of “otherness.” One exam- her most intriguing analysis of ple of this othering tendency is the South Park, she focuses on an epi- constant exhibiting of those who sode that features a guest character: practice Islam as automatically in- Mr. Slave. Mr. Slave is a leather- tolerant toward women and sexual bottom who Mr. Garrison (the minorities. The author questions school’s teacher) invites to class so this assumption by suggesting that that he can then prove that the school Islam is contradictory to and varied is intolerant toward homosexuality. among those who practice it. In- Showing that the school’s adminis- deed, in many cases, it even serves as tration is intolerant would enable a powerful source of cultural belong- Mr. Garrison to sue the school for a ing for sexual minorities. Queers of substantial amount. Puar centers her color in the United States, here no- analysis on a student’s statement tably South Asians living in urban about Mr. Slave, that he is Pakistani. locales such as New York City, She then proceeds to highlight the have turned to their ethnic enclaves problematic assumptions of this and religious spaces as a viable way sentence, by suggesting that the to create community during the production of the terrorist body de- government’s lockdown on “terror- pends upon the oversexualization ism.” These sites ultimately foster of the ethnic-national minority that cultural belonging for persons out- “Pakistani” indexes.
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