Queer International Relations Research Articles

Our Work is International Relations: On Exclusion, Negotiation, and Engagement Against Disciplinary Boundaries

With this forum we aim to contribute to the debate within International Relations (IR) scholarship about the space that has opened up since the inter-paradigmatic debate 30 years ago and the challenges still experienced by those of us coming from the “margin” yet committed to the “globalization” of the discipline. That is to say, to building a pluriverse of IR. In the first contribution Anupama Ranawana begins by considering the practical difficulties for Southern research and knowledge creation in IR, detailing a snapshot of how current funding structures continue to relegate academics and researchers in the Global South to a relationship of dependency on their counterparts in the Global North. The next two contributions to the discussion reflect on how these problematic bounds of the disciple are then embodied by those of us working in more marginal spaces in IR. First, Ahmed Rizky Mardhatilla Umar writes of the policing of IR within the Indonesian University which continues to leave most critical work as outside of IR. Another point of embodied experience in what for many continues to be marginal or even outside of the discipline is considered by Jamie J. Hagen and Alex Edney-Browne who write about queer IR and specifically the experience of being a part of a community of LGBTQA (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and allies) in IR scholars. In conclusion Roland Bleiker reflects and evaluates “the potential and limits of International Relations as an academic discipline” even as the discipline continues to call for greater diversity. As such, each contributor speaks separately to a jointly articulated provocation regarding what counts and is centered as “real” International Relations scholarship, based on their own encounters with being told explicitly (i.e., through rejections, lack of institutional support) or implicitly (i.e., through what we are taught) that our work is not International Relations.

What Does Queer IR Want? A Queer Psychoanalytic Critique

Abstract This article presents a sympathetic critique of the concept of “queer” operative in the subfield of Queer International Relations from a psychoanalytic perspective. I first reconstruct queer International Relations (IR) in relation to disciplinary IR and queer theory, and offer an appraisal of the current state of the field's division between LGBT+ theorists and queer theorists. I then consider Cynthia Weber’s recent work and suggest that the boundary between the two camps of queer IR is precarious in that both require and presuppose an opposition to some concept of the straight world. I suggest that, thus construed, the form of the queer/straight distinction approximates that of the mirror stage Jacques Lacan theorized in the 1930s. Read through Lacan, the notion of “queer” in queer IR can be shown to reduce the concept of desire to that of identity, which precludes understanding of the political import of queerness in respect of the LGBT+ group. Finally, I apply the Freudian–Lacanian reflection on narcissism, group formation, and desire to the debate on LGBT+ rights, and conclude that attending to the Lacanian concept of pure desire (via queer readings of Antigone) may be productive for queer IR's rethinking of the deadlocks it has run into in its brief history.

Is Turkey a Western nation? How the Turkish political elite aimed to appeal to the US political elite during the Afghan conflict

Using discourse analysis as its methodology, this article demonstrates how the Turkish political elite sought to play a ‘Western nation role’ towards Afghanistan in order to appeal indirectly to the US political elite. In that sense, this article underlines how, under coalition (1999–2002) and the Justice and Development Party (2002–) rule, the Turkish governments used security and humanitarian narratives to underscore Turkey’s contributions to Western security after the 11 September 2001 attacks. Continuing on from those narratives, the article explains how a non-Western Muslim country could consider fellow Muslim nations as ‘others’ in order to present itself as a Western actor. This document also details how queer international relations theory and securitisation theory explain the Turkish elite’s decision-making during the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s presence in Afghanistan over the last two decades. To that end, this article highlights how the Justice and Development Party government continued the pro-Western narratives of its predecessor coalition government, which decided to send Turkish military forces into Afghanistan in order to appeal to the US political elite.

Sexuality, Gender, and the Colonial Violence of Humanitarian Intervention

Abstract Recent discussions of humanitarian intervention in international relations (IR) have often focused on the evolution of norms, and the development and contestation of the responsibility to protect (R2P) framework. While beneficial in tracing this process, most of these studies tend not to incorporate an analysis of colonialism, race, sexuality, or gender. While postcolonial studies of humanitarian intervention have done well to illustrate the relationship between humanitarian intervention and colonial violence, they still tend to neglect the study of sexuality and gender. Exploring how the sexualized, gendered, and racialized dimensions of colonialism can be incorporated into the study of humanitarian intervention, this paper proposes a queer approach. After exploring the valuable contributions of feminist scholarship, it suggests that the queer approaches of Nicola Pratt (“The Queen Boat Case in Egypt: Sexuality, National Security and State Sovereignty,” Review of International Studies 33, no. 1 [2007]: 129–44), Cynthia Weber (Queer International Relations: Sovereignty, Sexuality and the Will to Knowledge. New York, Oxford University Press, 2016), and Laura Shepherd and Laura Sjoberg (“Trans- Bodies in/of War(s): Cisprivilege and Contemporary Security Strategy,” Feminist Review 101, no. 1 [2012]: 5–23) offer some distinct contributions that build upon feminist insights. Applying these to the 2015 House of Commons debate on airstrikes against ISIL, the paper suggests that queer IR can invigorate the study of humanitarian intervention with a framework that unpacks the simultaneously gendered, sexual, and racial dimensions of colonial violence.

Queer International Relations, Internationalization & Stellar Education: Characterizing Gayborhoods Latin America

The LGBTQ+ movement has been advocating for their rights all over Latin America, thus each country had faced and still faces particular characteristics (legal, cultural, political and social) in order to advocate for the movement rights leading to different methodologies and theories, from anthropological narratives, to analyse it. For instance, Globalized Gayborhoods -as a typology- describe the LGBTQ+ rights status all over the world, specifically in capital cities, and therefore including some Latin-American cities. Regarding this typology, and by questioning it, we ask: How gayborhoods can be characterised in Latin America under Queer IR, internationalization, and narratives under the scope of Staller Education? Thus, we propose Gayborhoods Lat (Latin America) as places that characterise the status of the LGBTQ+ rights in the region based on Queer International Relations, internationalization, and some oral narratives from Stellar Education.

‘Diplomacy is a feminine art’: Feminised figurations of the diplomat

AbstractThe aim of this article is to examine whether and how diplomacy may be gendered, symbolically and rhetorically, using US representations of diplomacy as a case. Prior scholarship on gender and contemporary diplomacy is sparse but has shown that the symbolic figure of ‘the diplomat’ has come to overlap tightly with ‘man’ and be associated with traits often attributed to masculinity. Inspired by queer international relations methods, relying on the concept of ‘figuration’ and focused on US news media and biographies of diplomats from the past decade, this article uncovers and examines a palette of feminised figurations also at play in US representations of diplomacy, including the diplomat as ‘the “soft” non-fighter’, ‘the relationship builder’, ‘the gossip’, ‘the cookie-pusher’, and ‘the fancy Frenchman’. These feminised figurations alternate between configuring the diplomat as a woman and – more commonly – a (feminised) man. The analysis complicates rather than displaces existing claims, highlighting the importance of attention to slippages and challenges to dominant masculinised subject positions.

Cynthia Weber Queer international relations: sovereignty, sexuality and the will to knowledge.

Cynthia Weber <i>Queer international relations: sovereignty, sexuality and the will to knowledge.</i>

Queer International Relations: Sovereignty, Sexuality, and the Will to Knowledge, written by Cynthia Weber

Queer International Relations: Sovereignty, Sexuality, and the Will to Knowledge, written by Cynthia Weber

Dialogues Between Queer International Relations (2016) and Sexualities in World Politics (2015): What Does IR Need to Learn?

Dialogues Between Queer International Relations (2016) and Sexualities in World Politics (2015): What Does IR Need to Learn?

JuanGa/Aguilera: una figuración "queer" del "homosexual" en América Latina = JuanGa/Aguilera: A Queer Figuration of the “Homosexual” in Latin America

Resumen. Este artículo presenta un estudio de las figuraciones del “homosexual” en América Latina. Se inspira en el trabajo de Cynthia Weber sobre teoría queer en Relaciones In­ternacionales y en el análisis latinoamericano queer de Carlos Figari. Se propone una manera plural de contestar a tres interrogantes: ¿quién es el “homosexual” en América Latina?, ¿qué es el Estado-nación moderno que se presupone “soberano”? y ¿cómo el “homosexual” participa en la construcción del Estado-nación “soberano”? Las dos primeras preguntas no se contestan, pero se explora su potencial para los estudios “queer” y de Relaciones Internacionales.Para contestar la tercera pregunta se introduce una figuración plural del “homosexual” que rompe con la dicotomía entre normal y perverso en el contexto latinoamericano: Juan­Ga/Aguilera. Se justifica por qué JuanGa/Aguilera crea un Estado-nación soberano plural que complica (quizá hasta hace imposibles) las nociones tradicionales dicotómicas de soberanía. Se utiliza este resultado para dar una serie de perspectivas de investigación que abre el en­tendimiento de las figuraciones plurales como hombre soberano, tanto en los estudios lati­noamericanos de teoría queer como en los de Relaciones Internacionales.Palabras clave: Queer, Relaciones Internacionales, sexualidad, homosexualidad, sober­anía, política internacional.Abstract. This article presents a study about Latin American figurations of the “homo­sexual”. It was inspired by the work of Cynthia Weber in Queer International Relations (Queer IR) and the Latin American Queer analysis of Carlos Figari. It proposes a new pluralistic way to answer to three interrogatives: who is the “homosexual” in Latin America?, what is the modern nation-state that is assumed to be “sovereign”? and, how does the “homosexual” participates in the construction of the “sovereign” nation-state? The first two questions are not answered, rather they are explored for their potential to produce new insights to Queer and IR theories.To answer the third question, it will be introduced a new plural figuration of the “homo­sexual” that breaks apart with the either normal or perverse dichotomy: JuanGa/Aguilera. It is justified why JuanGa/Aguilera creates a plural “sovereign” nation state that makes more difficult (even impossible) to sustain traditional binary understandings of sovereign. This last result will be used to give new research possibilities that can be achieved in Latin American Queer Studies and International Relations through the understanding of plural figurations of sovereign man.Keywords: queer, International Relations, sexuality, homosexuality, sovereignty, inter­national politics.

Everything You Always Wanted to Know about Sex (in IR) But were Afraid to Ask: The ‘Queer Turn’ in International Relations

Queer International Relations’ momentum in the past four years has made it inconceivable for disciplinary IR to make it ‘appear as if there is no Queer International Theory’. The ‘queer turn’ has given rise to vibrant research programmes across IR subfields. Queer research is not only not a frivolous distraction from the ‘hard’ issues of IR, but queer analytics crack open for investigation fundamental dimensions of international politics that have hitherto been missed, misunderstood or trivialised by mainstream and critical approaches to IR. As queer research is making significant inroads into IR theorising, a fault line has emerged in IR scholarship on sexuality and queerness. Reflecting the tensions between Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) Studies and Queer Theory in the academy more broadly, the IR literature on (homo)sexuality largely coalesces into two distinct approaches: LGBT and Queer approaches. The article will lay out the basic tenets of Queer Theory and discuss how it diverges from LGBT Studies. The article then turns to the books under review and focuses on the ways in which they take up the most prominent issue in contemporary debates in Queer Theory: the increasing inclusion of LGBT people into international human rights regimes and liberal states and markets. The article finishes with a brief reflection on citation practices, queer methodologies and the ethics of queer research.

“The terrorist”: the out-of-place and on-the-move “perverse homosexual” in international relations

This piece is an excerpt from my book Queer International Relations (Weber 2016a). Harmonie Toros astutely edited this piece to focus in on my arguments about terrorism and the figure of “the terro...

Queer International Relations: sovereignty, sexuality and the will to knowledge

Queer International Relations: sovereignty, sexuality and the will to knowledge

The ‘gay Olympics’? The Eurovision Song Contest and the politics of LGBT/European belonging

The politics of gay and transgender visibility and representation at the Eurovision Song Contest, an annual televised popular music festival presented to viewers as a contest between European nations, show that processes of interest to Queer International Relations do not just involve states or even international institutions; national and transnational popular geopolitics over ‘lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights’ and ‘Europeanness’ equally constitute the understandings of ‘the international’ with which Queer International Relations is concerned. Building on Cynthia Weber’s reading the persona of the 2014 Eurovision winner Conchita Wurst with ‘queer intellectual curiosity’, this article demonstrates that Eurovision shifted from, in the late 1990s, an emerging site of gay and trans visibility to, by 2008–2014, part of a larger discursive circuit taking in international mega-events like the Olympics, international human-rights advocacy, Europe–Russia relations and the politics of state homophobia and transphobia. Contest organisers thus had to take positions — ranging from detachment to celebration — about ‘lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender’ politics in host states and the Eurovision region. The construction of spatio-temporal hierarchies around attitudes to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights, however, revealed exclusions that corroborate other critical arguments on the reconfiguration of national and European identities around ‘lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender equality’.

Queer Intellectual Curiosity as International Relations Method: Developing Queer International Relations Theoretical and Methodological Frameworks

This article outlines two theoretical and methodological approaches that take a queer intellectual curiosity about figurations of “homosexuality” and “the homosexual” as their core. These offer ways to conduct international relations research on “the homosexual” and on international-relations figurations more broadly, e.g. from “the woman” to “the human rights holder.” The first approach provides a method for analyzing figurations of “the homosexual” and sexualized orders of international relations that are inscribed in IR as either normal or perverse. The second approach offers instructions on how to read plural figures and plural logics that signify as normal and/or perverse (and which might be described as queer). Together, they propose techniques, devices and research questions to investigate singular and plural IR figurations – including but not exclusively those of “the homosexual” – that map international phenomena as diverse as colonialism, human rights, and the formation of states and international communities in ways that exceed IR survey research techniques that, for example, incorporate “the homosexual” into IR research through a “sexuality variable.”

Thinking About Queer International Relations’ Allies

What does it mean to be an ally to not only communities mobilizing for justice but also to a field of study/scholars? I contend that this question is vital and pivotal as we try to grapple with Queer International Relations (IR)/Global Queer Studies’ relationship with the IR discipline. In the context of academic institutions and practices, I see “allies” as those who may not regularly cite, rely upon, study, teach, or participate in a particular field of studies but are interested and invested in the development and endurance of that scholarship. But what is done to and with Queer IR by allies? Are ally politics aiming to deconstruct, dismantle, and radically transform the very systems of which they are beneficiaries? Or are allies leaving power relationships intact because they are actually uneasy with, dismissive of, or unclear about Queer IR theorizing? Scholars working in queer studies, critical race studies, or on allegedly “peripheral” topics have increasingly questioned the politics of their so-called allies, among students, faculty, administration, and the profession as a whole (Carver 2009; Ahmed 2012; Gutierrez y Muhs, Niemann, Gonzalez, and Harris 2012). Perhaps, for some, being an ally means establishing queer-friendly credentials, so they might support the work of a scholar who does Queer IR or devote a week of attention in their IR class to Global Queer Studies to illustrate the “diversity” of IR theories. Or, they might enfold Queer IR insights within slightly “safer” research agendas, such as “human rights.” But how far are they willing to go in creating space for Queer IR to challenge how IR is performed, or how marginalized scholars are treated as different, anomalies, and incompetent? Anecdotal evidence reveals that scholars doing Queer IR, like other marginalized academics, face troubling encounters on blogs and Facebook pages, in conferences, …

Producing Homonormativity in Neoliberal South Africa: Recognition, Redistribution, and the Equality Project

Producing Homonormativity in Neoliberal South Africa: Recognition, Redistribution, and the Equality Project