An Exploration of Queer Diasporic Subjectivities in Shani Mootoo’s 'Out on Main Street'

Cristina Salcedo González

doi:10.5209/cjes.66756

Abstract

In view of the acute lack of analyses of Indian-Trinidadian queer diasporic subjectivities, this article will focus on Shani Mootoo’s “Out on Main Street” by using a queer diasporic theoretical framework, one which hinges on unveiling the violent practices to which sexually and racially marginalized communities are exposed and on exploring the ways by which queer diasporic subjects subvert dominant assumptions. In order to carry out the analysis, I will, first, offer an overview of the uses and implications for invoking the concept of a queer diaspora to study Mootoo’s story; second, I will scrutinize the manner in which the queer diasporic narrator is affected by exclusivist definitions of gender and national identities, and, third, I will examine the specific tactics through which she unsettles the normative logic. Ultimately, the study of Mootoo’s story under a queer diasporic approach will offer a further insight into the diaspora experience, one which considers both sexuality and translocation as crucial factors shaping the way the narrator inhabits the city.

Highlights

Queering DiasporaHow to cite this article: Salcedo González, C. (2020) An Exploration of Queer Diasporic Subjectivities in Shani Mootoo’s “Out on Main Street”, in Complutense Journal of English Studies 28, 57-63
Considering the acute lack of analyses of Indian-Trinidadian queer diasporic subjectivities, I deem it appropriate to study “Out on Main Street” using a queer diasporic theoretical framework, one which hinges on, on the one hand, unveiling the violent practices to which sexually and racially marginalized communities are exposed, and, on the other hand, exploring the ways by which queer diasporic subjects subvert dominant assumptions. Drawing on these preliminary notions, in this article, I will, first, offer an overview of the uses and implications for invoking the concept of a queer diaspora to study Mootoo’s story; second, I will scrutinize the manner in which the queer diasporic narrator is affected by exclusivist definitions of gender and national identities, and, third, I will examine the specific tactics through which she unsettles the normative logic
Cultural critics Stuart Hall (1990: 235) and Gayatri Gopinath (2005: 68), among others, have drawn attention to two aspects which are paramount in the establishment of conventional nationalist and diasporic ideologies: first, nationalist projects are organized around exclusivist and absolutist notions of sexual, gender, linguistic, religious and national identities; second, traditional models of diaspora tend to reproduce the heteronormative and hegemonic assumptions purported by nationalisms

Summary

Queering Diaspora

Cultural critics Stuart Hall (1990: 235) and Gayatri Gopinath (2005: 68), among others, have drawn attention to two aspects which are paramount in the establishment of conventional nationalist and diasporic ideologies: first, nationalist projects are organized around exclusivist and absolutist notions of sexual, gender, linguistic, religious and national identities; second, traditional models of diaspora tend to reproduce the heteronormative and hegemonic assumptions purported by nationalisms. Insofar as such dominant notions are endowed with the status of peremptory norms involving the distinction between legitimate and illegitimate ways of living, queer diasporic individuals (and, in general, those individuals who do not follow the hegemonic notions of identity) are perceived and made to perceive themselves as failed and incompetent subjects, that is, as individuals who are not capable of reaching the imaginary meeting points that everyone else seems to be accessing Such is the case of Mootoo’s unnamed narrator, a queer Indo-Trinidadian woman who, right from the beginning, reveals that she and her girlfriend, Janet, cannot go to Main Vancouver’s Main Street—the area known as Little India or Punjabi Market—as often as they would like to because, to begin with, they are “watered-down Indians” (Mootoo 1993: 205) and, to continue, because she looks “like a gender dey forget to classify” (Mootoo 1993: 209). The narrator is destabilizing the rigid and normative boundaries of a static place and introducing a different logic and organization of such space (Gopinath 2005: 28)

Introduction

Conclusion