Decolonizing queer modernities: the case for queer (post)colonial studies in critical/cultural communication

Abstract

ABSTRACT In this essay, we advocate for a queer (post)colonial studies as a continuation of the critical foundational work that has been done by postcolonial feminists, women of color, queer people of color and non-academic activists. In doing so, we make the case for critical/cultural scholars to engage with queerness through postcoloniality and decoloniality as a way to lay bare the geopolitical imbalances and colonial entanglements in which queer scholarship is done. As an exemplar case study to support our argument, we examine the controversy that emerged from the Comprehensive Sexuality Education proposal in Ghana, West Africa. In the end, we argue that queer (post)colonial studies is imperative for critical/cultural communication because it refuses the Western heteronormative structures that claim to have domination over the bodies and future, turning instead to what we may imagine once our intimate desires are loosed from heteronormative, colonial, and homonationalist holds.