Queer Theory/Queer Geographies

Abstract

This article begins by examining the complexity of queer sexuality and two of its definitions and uses. In particular, ‘queer’ is seen as an overarching term for all outside the normative boundaries of gender and sexuality (including but not limited to lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans individuals) and as a non-/antinormative critical technique. The first section examines queer theory, introducing the reclaiming of the term ‘queer’. This section then examines some of the non-normative impulses of queer, including the questioning of the assumed links between gender, sex, sexualities, race, disabilities, and other social differences in the construction of Oedipal subjectivities. Within this discussion, concepts of heteronormativity, homonormativity, and performativity are outlined. The article then considers geographies and queer sexuality. In particular, understandings of the globalization of the term ‘queer’ as erasing cultural distinctions between sexual identities, lives, practices, and oppressions in globalizing ways and how these diversities can, in turn, contest hegemonic (globalizing) definitions of an overarching ‘queer’ identity. Moving on to discuss how geographies have used and developed queer theories, and how ‘queer’ is used in geographical contexts, the article explains how sexual and gender normativities within geographies have been questioned, and the spatial (re)constitution of gender and sexualities. The emerging differences between geographies of sexualities and queer geographies are examined. The final section introduces the main critiques of ‘queer’, particularly, the problems with overarching ‘queer categories’, the deconstruction of identities, and the de-linking of theory from ‘everyday lives’.