In this third installation I am seeking to apply homonationalism to international contexts. While these sources don't specifically engage with the term homonationalism, they argue for similar mobilization of queer/ gay identity. The first two sources deal with Israel and pink-washing while the third source deals with Zimbabwe.
First Source- Queerness as Europeanness
a. "Queerness as Europeaness: Immigration, Orientalist Visions, and Racialized Encounters in Israel/ Palestine"
b. Adi Kuntsman
c. This article begins by arguing that Israel has become an apartheid state wrapped up in European colonial visions. Non- Jewish Palestians have been driven off the land without the ability to return while Israel becomes a haven for Jews. Beyond this, the article argues that queerness is not always transgressive and within the context of Israel, is complicit with violence. Similar to Puar, this article also invokes the image of the terrorist. Palestinians are excluded from national narratives and belonging similar to the ways in which Puar argues the Muslim and immigrant are excluded from the US. Queers operate within the same economy of scarcity in Israel as it does in the US. Palestinians are othered for queers to be accepted into national belonging. The figure of the terrorist and the Palestinian also becomes subject to Orientalist knowledge production that sexualizes and perverses the Other. The literal land and the intangible community and belonging of Israel are founded on the exclusion of Palestinians. When queers continue to operate in that space, they are complicit with that othering.
d. This paper utilizes similar logics as Puar's original writings while pushing it further to apply to a new context as well as expose the Foucauldian arguments. More general theories about the perversity and repression of the Other could be useful here.
e. I had previously read this article and it was my only previous interaction with a queer analysis of Israel.
f. Kuntsman, Adi. "Queerness as Europeanness: Immigration, Orientialist Visions and Racialized Encounters in Israel/Palestine." Dark Matter (2008).
Second Source- Pinkwashing
a. Israel's Gay Propaganda War
b. Jasbir Puar
c. This article discusses the tension between Israel's increasingly repressive policies towards Palestinians while at the same time attempting to portray itself as a benign democracy. Gay people and "pinkwashing" are integral to that process. Pinkwashing is the intentional process of Israel to portray itself as gay friendly to the international community. "To be gay friendly is to be modern, cosmopolitan, developed, first-world, global north, and most significantly, democratic." Pinkwashing allows Israel access to the First World while ignoring ongoing atrocities. Israel is portrayed as civilized while Palestinians are homophobic. Gays and lesbians become complicit with Israel's violence towards Palestine.
d. Within this article Puar mentions several activist groups within Israel and outside of it that are doing interesting work to combat pinkwashing.
e. I was googling Puar and Israel because I knew she had written on the term but I was not familiar with it.
f. Puar, Jasbir. "Israel's Gay Propaganda War." The Guardian [Manchester, England] 1 July 2010.
Third Source- Homonationalism in Zimbabwe
a. Between the White Man's Burden and the White Man's Disease: Tracking Lesbian and gay Human Rights in Southern Africa Note: you have to use your x500 to access it.
b. Neville Hoad
c. This article argues that rights and inclusion within the Zimbabwean nationalist narrative only furthers its violence and exclusion and remains within the nationalist narrative. Instead of gay activism being on the terms of Mugabe, it should focus on criticizing the logic of nationalism itself. Discourses of rights, nationalism, and gay identity circulate transnationally and ignoring any aspect of that would be foolish. There is no authentic African that can be discovered and arguing for inclusion within that category is complicit in its other areas of exclusion beyond gays. Gay rights threaten the cultural authenticity of a postcolonial nation-state because of their claims to modernity. Since claims to authenticity will be impossible given that it is a construction, activism needs to be rooted in questioning the use of nationalism and its violence beyond just queer bodies.
d. This article applies homonationalism to a country where it is rarely used and inspires further thinking about the colonial encounter.
e. I found this source by doing research for my thesis which also centers around the dangers of homonationalism.
f. Hoad, Neville. "Between the White Man's Burden and the White Man's Disease: Tracking Lesbian and Gay Human Rights in Southern Africa." GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 5.4 (1999): 559-84.
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