ethnicity and sexuality
Queer Theory
Emerged in the early 1990s as a critical approach developed through a combination of both feminist and lesbian/gay studies. Its central challenge has been to dispute the notion of stable or fixed identity categories of gender and sexual expression. Its view is that identities are made up of so many factors and components that to emphasise any one characteristic is both absurd and false (Halley and Parker, 2011). Queer theory is concerned with providing a challenge to fixed identities: heterosexual, bisexual and homosexual alike. The notion of a stable sexual subject is contested and traditional identity politics are challenged as forms of disciplinary regulation... Instead it is argued that identities are always multiple and unstable.
Sexual Fluidity
Far from being ‘fixed’ in biology, our sexual identities rely far more upon constructivist variables that are influenced by any number of psycho-social factors such as conformity, locational circumstance and peer pressure (Butler, 2006; Fine, 2010). Prior ways of being sexual that are sedimented, clear, secure and satisfactory can be interpretatively reassessed and, in turn, both de-sediment and re- sediment into differing ways of being sexual. Rather than view heterosexual or LGBT identities as rigid ‘hard-wired’ traits, Diamond argues that they are more adequately understood as fluid conditions that remain dependent upon a wide number of inter-relational and socio-cultural contextual factors.
Sexual fluidity encompasses three key ideas:
a) the non-exclusivity in attraction to either gender;
b) the open possibility of change in the focus of attraction;
c) that attraction is directed toward the person, not the gender.
Disidentification
Queers of color are left out of representation in a spaced colonized by the logics of white normativity and hetenormativity. Disidentification is a third mode of dealing with dominant ideology, one that neither opts to assimilate within such a structure nor strictly opposes it; rather, disidentification is a strategy that occurs within the decolonial imaginary in order to survive (Perez, 2003).
Decolonial Imaginary
A theoretical construct of decolonizing history. The decolonial imaginary can help us rethink history in a way that makes agency for those on the margins transformative. The colonial mindset believes in a normative language, race, culture, gender, class, and sexuality. The decolonial imaginary allows us to rethink about history in ways that proposes carving new identities and rupturing space (Perez, 2003).
Emerged in the early 1990s as a critical approach developed through a combination of both feminist and lesbian/gay studies. Its central challenge has been to dispute the notion of stable or fixed identity categories of gender and sexual expression. Its view is that identities are made up of so many factors and components that to emphasise any one characteristic is both absurd and false (Halley and Parker, 2011). Queer theory is concerned with providing a challenge to fixed identities: heterosexual, bisexual and homosexual alike. The notion of a stable sexual subject is contested and traditional identity politics are challenged as forms of disciplinary regulation... Instead it is argued that identities are always multiple and unstable.
Sexual Fluidity
Far from being ‘fixed’ in biology, our sexual identities rely far more upon constructivist variables that are influenced by any number of psycho-social factors such as conformity, locational circumstance and peer pressure (Butler, 2006; Fine, 2010). Prior ways of being sexual that are sedimented, clear, secure and satisfactory can be interpretatively reassessed and, in turn, both de-sediment and re- sediment into differing ways of being sexual. Rather than view heterosexual or LGBT identities as rigid ‘hard-wired’ traits, Diamond argues that they are more adequately understood as fluid conditions that remain dependent upon a wide number of inter-relational and socio-cultural contextual factors.
Sexual fluidity encompasses three key ideas:
a) the non-exclusivity in attraction to either gender;
b) the open possibility of change in the focus of attraction;
c) that attraction is directed toward the person, not the gender.
Disidentification
Queers of color are left out of representation in a spaced colonized by the logics of white normativity and hetenormativity. Disidentification is a third mode of dealing with dominant ideology, one that neither opts to assimilate within such a structure nor strictly opposes it; rather, disidentification is a strategy that occurs within the decolonial imaginary in order to survive (Perez, 2003).
Decolonial Imaginary
A theoretical construct of decolonizing history. The decolonial imaginary can help us rethink history in a way that makes agency for those on the margins transformative. The colonial mindset believes in a normative language, race, culture, gender, class, and sexuality. The decolonial imaginary allows us to rethink about history in ways that proposes carving new identities and rupturing space (Perez, 2003).