Topological spaces of embodied becoming: queens, queerness, and (infra)structural subterfuge in Singapore

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper considers the political potential that emerges when theorizations of the body-as-infrastructure are brought into conversation with theorizations of topological space. It argues that the infrastructural body provides an interface through which structural norms can be destabilized, and the interrelationships between the state, society, and self can be reimagined. These ideas are illustrated through an empirical exploration of drag queens in Singapore. Singapore is a socially conservative Asian city-state in which heteronormative values are passed down by the state, reproduced through the family, and then used to structure societal understandings of gender and sexuality. By interpreting Singapore’s hegemonic state-society spaces in topological terms, drag queens reveal a modality of queerness that is not necessarily deviant, or apart-from, the country’s non-queer public spaces, but is mutually constitutive of them instead. Through (infra)structuralization, the drag body reveals a potentiality that transcends the strictures of everyday life. Accordingly, the paper advances the politico-theoretical promise of ‘Queer Asia’.