Queering ontological (in)security: a psychoanalysis of political homophobia

Abstract

ABSTRACT Recent advancements in ontological security (OS) derived from Lacan’s psychoanalysis rethink the concept in terms of the subject’s desire for completeness through attempting stabilised and fixed identities. This approach can offer a novel way to examine the rise of political homophobia where power works pervasively. However, the current conceptualisations of ontological (in)security are not theoretically equipped to unpack and examine such violent politics. This is mainly because ontological (in)security has yet to grapple with the concept of power. This article will address this gap and rethink Lacanian ontological (in)security as a framework for critical power analysis. It equips it with two theoretical moves: Queer studies, which advances the understanding of ‘the other’ and ‘othering’, and emotions research, which demonstrates how emotions work in othering, in International Relations. These two theoretical moves enable the framework to examine how emotions do political work to (re)produce binaries such as subject and object, ‘self’ and ‘other’, and ‘normal’ and ‘perverse’ in the subject production process in heteronormative ‘regimes of normal’. Consequently, Lacanian ontological (in)security can help us understand how and why a gendered and sexualised politics is normalised. The argument will be illustrated through analysis of emotional representations of LGBTQI+ communities in the state-level political discourse in Turkey.