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Queer
is a Feeling: A Call for the Exploration of the Felt
Dimensions of Queer Identity
Elizabeth
Schergen
Department
of Anthropology
University
of Texas, Austin
Estados
Unidos
This paper explores the
affective aspects of identity construction, calling for
scholarly and ethnographic explorations of the felt
dimensions of queer identity. I discuss theorizations of
gay and lesbian identities and how we might add nuance to
these theorizations by considering the roles of feeling
and affect in queer identity construction.
I draw on the work of Ann
Cvetkovich in An Archive of Feelings: Trauma, Sexuality,
and Public Cultures, in formulating an argument for
increased attention to the affective dimensions of queer
public cultures and identities. I discuss the ways in
which gay and lesbian identities have historically been
constructed in terms of citizenship and rights. In their
struggles for civil rights, gay and lesbian activists have
had to conform to the liberal mainstream conception of the
generic, unmarked citizen. I argue that this normalization
of gay identity aimed at civic inclusion obscures the
complexity of gay identities and alternative modes of
identity construction.
Since the 1990’s there
has been a shift in thinking about gay identity in terms
of citizenship to thinking about queer identity and
politics. Queer politics stands in opposition to the logic
of normalization, generic citizenship, and rights granted
to abstract subjects. As gay rights activists and members
of queer communities began to think about forging gay
identities independent of constructions of heterosexual
identity and in opposition to the idea of normalized
citizenship, they have employed the word ‘queer’ to
signify this shift in thinking. I next discuss some of the
problematics of queer identity construction and expression.
I argue that queer subjects have had to rely on signs and
indexes in constructing and expressing identity that
usually are not identifiably ‘queer’ because of the
difficulties in articulating and communicating what queer
is; queer isn’t conceived of as a social analytic
category in the same way as are ethnicity, race, class, or
culture. There isn’t a “traditional” queer culture
from which queers can deploy signifiers of identity; queer
subjects have had to imbue the signifiers and indexes of
their identities with queerness.
Queers have done this
largely through the formation of queer publics and
counterpublics; spaces that have been created through the
negotiation of emotions, politics, and history. These
queer public cultures, as Cvetkovich argues, are rife with
affect and feeling; queers can identify with and draw from
these spheres in constructing and expressing identity
because these spaces have come to embody what queer feels
like.
I propose that it is these
queer public cultures that Cvetkovich describes that are
the fields in which queers fashion their identities. While
there may not exist objectifiably queer identity markers,
subjects employ gay and lesbian history and experiences of
trauma, which constitute queer public cultures, to
affectively index queer identity. I maintain that
increased attention to these affective modes of identity
construction would prove empowering not only for the
disciplines of queer theory and gay and lesbian studies,
but also for the communities which these disciplines serve.
About Elizabeth Schergen
Elizabeth Schergen was born
in raised in Chicago, Illinois. She is a graduate student
in Anthropology at the University of Texas, Austin, and
will be completing her master's work in the spring of
2008. She plans to continue graduate study in anthropology
at the University of Texas and pursue a PhD. Her areas of
interest are: the anthropology of the body, urban
anthropology, and queer theory.
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