Queerious communities: building writing centres in Indian universities

Abstract

Abstract This paper examines the new phenomenon of writing centres being made a part of universities, particularly the liberal arts private universities, in India, as growing in a way that lends it to consciously choosing queer pedagogy and to building it as a politically queer space. While some aspects of the queering of writing centres mirror the invisibilizing and the burden of proving the worth of their existence in the way queer communities are, other aspects build on what queer theory enables in terms of understanding what it takes to build communities where what is normative will continually shift what it excludes. Queer theory reminds us of the fluid and constantly reconstituting nature of identity formation whether it is based on non-binary gender identity or identities caught in the debilitating intersections of class, caste, religion, ability and sexuality. This has led to a recognition that communities formed around the learning of reading, writing and thinking, as writing centres are, are predisposed to shift focus from product to process as a move in the practice of teaching writing because it considers the individual reading-and-writing-selves present in the classroom as subjects-in-formation. This paper argues that writing pedagogy is creating queer communities because it invites and supports unsettled subjective selves to the process of knowledge production.