A Review of Sara Ahmed's Queer Phenomenology: Orientations, Objects, Others

Dai Kojima

doi:10.29173/pandpr19816

Abstract

A Review of Sara Ahmed's Queer Phenomenology: Orientations, Objects, Others

Highlights

Ahmed begins this intellectual journey by asking what it means to be orientated, toward and against objects in worlds, for queer life. She states, “If orientation is a matter of how we reside in space, sexual orientation might be a matter of residence; of how we inhabit spaces as well as “who” or “what” we inhabit spaces with” (p. 1)
Ahmed engages in a discussion with Judith Butler, whom she quotes: “Heterosexual genders form themselves through the renunciation of the possibilities of homosexuality, as a foreclosure which produces a field of heterosexual objects at the same time as it produces a domain of those whom it would be impossible to love” (p. 87, emphasis by Ahmed)
Through reflecting on experiences in her own family home, Ahmed demonstrates how bodies take the shape against the prescribed background over time: how they sat at the dinner table, the photographs of generations of family members on the wall, all pointing toward the direction of heterosexual lines

Summary

Introduction

Ahmed begins this intellectual journey by asking what it means to be orientated, toward and against objects in worlds, for queer life. Intentionality, creates lines of direction that shape our perception and how we orientate ourselves toward the objects.

Results

Conclusion