Global Genders and Sexualities

This cluster aims to (1) globalize scholarship on genders and sexualities and discourses of gender that facilitate settler colonialism, colonialism, and white supremacy; (2) bring area-studies research into transregional dialogues; (3) employ the methodologies of literary studies, cultural studies, history, and anthropology; and (4) disrupt the Global North/Global South order directing attention to locales that are in historically and/or presently ambiguous positions with regards to the politics of genders and sexualities. Historically, the concepts “queer” or “transgender” are not particularly novel. The ways different generations in different parts of the world think about and practice sexuality has remained in flux, including both forward-leaps and reactionary backlashes. We also see how normative ideas of what is considered gender progress are deployed to delimit the bounds of the liberal, demarcating those who are open to progress and those who are considered enemies. Also, these metrics of gender progress serve to police racialized, indigenous bodies who are rendered inherently queer and deviant; unworthy of political self-determination;