Queer Anti-Racist Activism and Strategies of Critique: A Roundtable Discussion

‘Turkish, Dutch, gay and proud’: Mapping out the contours of agency in homonationalist times

“…These numbers indicate that it is primarily middle-class, white, Dutch gay men that can enjoy the Pride, unless a sponsor can be found, although this still necessitates a certain amount of social capital or a proper framework, such as the homonationalist/Orientalist 9 one, as in the case of the Turkish Boat. In order to be funded, organizers tend to mobilize ‘western’ sexual politics and identity categories (Gunkel and Pitcher, 2008: note 12), 10 which clearly delimits the possibilities open to non-western queers to criticize these categories and forces particular kinds of alliances between prominent ‘western’ LGBTI organizations and initiatives by queers of colour (Taquir et al., 2011: 182–3). Moreover, this funding scheme functions exactly because initiatives such as the Turkish Boat can be marked as exceptional, thus marking the rest of the Turkish-Dutch population – and Muslim populations in general – as homophobic.…”

The New Trans-National Politics of LGBT Human Rights in the Commonwealth: What Can UK NGOs Learn from the Global South?

“…Hence formation of the Foundation was significant as part of a wider focusing on human rights in London-based transnational LGBT campaigning, indeed Tatchell collaborated with Sen on Commonwealth lobbying from 2009 (Waites 2015). However criticisms have sometimes been made of Peter Tatchell's work, for example from African LGBTI Human Rights Defenders (2007) who found his initiatives insensitive to their contexts (Tauqir et al 2011;. Hence the institutionalization of his activism, with growing resources and support from a board (apparently all white), posed questions about who was to be represented.…”

Countering illegibility: Religion, ethnicity and sexuality in public debates and lived experience in Belgium

“…The brutal and bloody nature of this maintenance work is everywhere in evidence ' (1994, 1). Critical insights into the dynamics of structural inequalities, disadvantages and privileges have spurred antiracist, anti-Islamophobic, anti-fundamentalist, feminist and LGBTQI critique and social movements (Bracke 2004;Coene and Longman 2008;Midden 2010;Tauqir et al 2011;Aune 2015;Dhaliwal and Yuval-Davis 2015;Roodsaz and van den Brandt 2017). In these critiques and movements, 'difference' is often criticised in terms of processes of marginalisation/minoritisation, and simultaneously affirmed in terms of the specificity of religious, ethnic, sexual or gendered viewpoints and experiences as the ground upon which society might be envisioned 'differently' ( Van den Brandt and Longman 2017).…”

“…I emphasise the creativity and endurance of subjects who understand themselves in-between various categories, develop strategies to move in-between, and consciously contribute to new collective/individual languages and spaces. While Hajar's counter-narrative is made (almost) illegible in a context of dominant ethno-sexularity, stories as hers are crucial for the further development of 'queer antiracist critique' Tauqir et al 2011;see also Muñoz 1999;El Tayeb 2011;Haritaworn 2015) that aims at creating space for claiming and articulating differences.…”