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Must Identity Movement Self-Destruct? A Queer Dilemma

DOI:10.1525/sp.1995.42.3.03x0104z
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Joshua Gamson at University of San Francisco
Joshua Gamson
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Abstract

Drawing on debates in lesbian and gay periodicals and writings from and about post-structuralist ''queer theory'' and politics. this paper clarifies the meanings and distinctive politics of ''queerness,'' in order to trace its implications for social movement theory and research. The challenge of queer theory and politics, I argue, is primarily in its disruption of sex and gender identity boundaries and deconstruction of identity categories. The debates (over the use of the term ''queer'' and over bisexual and transgender inclusion) raise questions not only about the content of sexuality-based political identities, but over their viability and usefulness. This in turn challenges social movement theory to further articulate dynamics of collective identity formation and deployment. While recent social movement theory has paid attention to the creation and negotiation of collective identity, it has not paid sufficient attention to the simultaneous impulse to destabilize identities from within. That tendency, while especially visible in lesbian and gay movements, is also visible in other social movements. It calls attention to a general dilemma of identity politics: Fixed identity categories are both the basis for oppression and the basis for political power. The insights of bath sides of the dilemma highlighted here raise important new questions for social movement theory and research.
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Must Identity Movements Self-Destruct? A Queer Dilemma
Joshua Gamson
Social Problems, Vol. 42, No. 3. (Aug., 1995), pp. 390-407.
Stable URL:
http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0037-7791%28199508%2942%3A3%3C390%3AMIMSAQ%3E2.0.CO%3B2-0
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You have printed the following article:
Must Identity Movements Self-Destruct? A Queer Dilemma
Joshua Gamson
Social Problems, Vol. 42, No. 3. (Aug., 1995), pp. 390-407.
Stable URL:
http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0037-7791%28199508%2942%3A3%3C390%3AMIMSAQ%3E2.0.CO%3B2-0
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[Footnotes]
2
Queer-Ing Sociology, Sociologizing Queer Theory: An Introduction
Steven Seidman
Sociological Theory, Vol. 12, No. 2. (Jul., 1994), pp. 166-177.
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2
A Queer Encounter: Sociology and the Study of Sexuality
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2
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The Politics of Inside/Out: Queer Theory, Poststructuralism, and a Sociological Approach to
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Sociological Theory, Vol. 12, No. 2. (Jul., 1994), pp. 188-202.
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Sociological Theory, Vol. 12, No. 2. (Jul., 1994), pp. 220-231.
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Queer-Ing Sociology, Sociologizing Queer Theory: An Introduction
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Sociological Theory, Vol. 12, No. 2. (Jul., 1994), pp. 166-177.
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... On this topic, Joshua Gamson (1995) describes the "queer dilemma," that is, the necessity to negotiate between the constraining character of definitional labels and their potential for helping the fostering of political agendas. According to Gamson, social movements face internal struggles over agendas that emphasize "sameness" and others that foreground "difference" (Gamson 1995, 95). ...
... However, this perspective ignores the fact that, despite having different perspectives on their demisexualities (thus destabilizing this category), all of the participants claim the label of demisexual (thus stabilizing this label). Therefore, taking into account queer politics' proposition against the resolution of contradiction and Gamson's (1995) arguments on the validity of both the tightening and the loosening of categories, the following sections present disputing narratives of demisexual experiences. ...
... Yet we constantly strive to fix it, stabilize it, say who we are by telling of our sex. (Weeks 1987, 68) As discussed previously, the claiming of a fixed identity can not only contribute to individuals' sense of self, but also foster the legitimization of non-normative sexualities (Gamson 1995). In the case of asexuality, this can help imagine asexual experiences that are not guided by medical models, thus contributing to the depathologization of these experiences. ...
Negotiating Demisexual Identities: Brazilian Women's Narratives on Demisexuality Negotiating Demisexual Identities: Brazilian Women's Narratives on Demisexuality
Thesis
Full-text available
  • Aug 2021
Demisexuality is one of the subset categories on the asexual spectrum (also called the “gray area” − a continuum that includes diverse identities based on varied levels of sexual attraction). It is defined by Demisexuality.org as “a sexual orientation in which someone feels sexual attraction only to people with whom they have an emotional bond.” (Demisexuality Resource Center, n.d.) Since no articles dealing specifically with demisexuality can be found in the main academic repositories, it could be said that there is a lack of research on the discourses that construct the sexuality of people who identify with this category. Moreover, although the demisexual community seeks to dissociate itself from an image of sexual conservatism, an association is oftentimes traced between this sexual identity and the set of sexual expectations that is traditionally imposed upon women. Thus, drawing on a non-essentialist understanding of sexual identities/subjectivities and on a qualitative interpretive approach to knowledge production, I conducted in-depth semi-structured individual interviews with nine Brazilian women who identify as demisexuals in order to investigate how they discursively construct their (demi)sexualities. Based on these interviews, in the thesis I reflect upon the following questions: What role do gender and sexuality play in the lived experience of demisexuality? How do demisexual people construct meanings of gender and sexuality in their narratives about their demisexual identification?
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... To understand Pride from a bisexual perspective or through a bisexual lens (Moss, 2012), we must begin by recognizing the curious social location bi+ people occupy vis-à-vis the broader BTLG population. On the one hand, bi+ people represent the largest sexual minority population (Barringer et al., 2017;Compton et al., 2015;Gates, 2011), and a population that has been actively involved in modern BTLG history and politics (Eisner, 2013;Gamson, 1995;Simula et al., 2019). On the other hand, bi+ people are consistently underrepresented and/or erased from media, religious, political, LG, and other narratives and assumptions about BTLG populations and sexualities more broadly (McLean, 2007;Mize, 2016;Monro et al., 2017). ...
... In so doing, our work here also responds to sociological questions raised a quarter of a century ago (Duggan, 2004;Seidman, 1993;Stryker, 2017). Surveying the development and fractures within lesbian/gay populations on the one hand, and bisexual/transgender populations on the other hand, in the early 1990's, Gamson (1995) demonstrated a split wherein most lesbian/gay movements adopted essentialist, assimilation (later named homonormative, Duggan, 2004) politics geared toward fitting into heterosexual, cisgender norms predicated upon the continued marginalization of bisexual and transgenderas well as racial minority, lower class, polyamorous, and kinkyothers. At the same time, most bisexual and transgender movements aligned with emerging queer politics predicated upon the eradication of social binaries, such as gay/straight, woman/man, and moral/immoral. ...
... At the same time, most bisexual and transgender movements aligned with emerging queer politics predicated upon the eradication of social binaries, such as gay/straight, woman/man, and moral/immoral. As a result, Gamson (1995) asked if such divisions might facilitate very different standpoints on BTLG inter-population dynamics over time (see also Duggan, 2004). ...
An Interactionist Approach to BTLG Pride
Article
Full-text available
  • Nov 2022
Within and beyond Symbolic Interactionism, sociological studies of bisexual, transgender, lesbian, and gay (BTLG) populations have expanded dramatically in the past two decades. Although such studies have invigorated our understanding of many aspects of BTLG life and experience, they have thus far left BTLG Pride relatively unexplored. How do BTLG populations experience Pride, and what insights might such efforts have for sociologically understanding such populations and events? We examine these questions through an interview study of bi+ people (i.e., sexually fluid people who identify as bisexual, pansexual, or otherwise outside of gay/straight binaries; Eisner, 2013). Specifically, we analyze how bi+ people negotiate both (1) experiencing Pride as “outsiders within” the broader BTLG population (Collins, 1986), and (2) framing who Pride is for and what it means in practice. In so doing, we demonstrate how Interactionist analyses of certain groups’ meaning making around and experiences of Pride can expand existing sociologies of BTLG populations, bisexual experience, and Pride.
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... The widespread disregard of the stigma concept is also surprising given the great interest it arouses in various scientific disciplines such as psychology, medicine, sociology, political science, criminology, and geography (Bos et al., 2013). The spectrum of stigmatised groups studied ranges from psychiatric patients (Kroska and Harkness, 2006), to LGBT activists (Gamson, 1995), and overweight people (Carr and Friedman, 2006). The few publications in communication studies on the stigma concept include Smith (2007) on stigma communication from a communication theory perspective or Meisenbach (2010) on stigma management communication. ...
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... contrast with identity politics, that has been increasingly associated with a strive for the recognition and celebration of specific identities (Bernstein, 2005;Fraser, 2000), and which has been criticized for overfocus on recognition at the detriment of redistribution and of an analysis of the material consequences of discrimination (Fraser, 2000;J. Gamson, 1995;Michaels, 2006). This dichotomy has been criticized as being too caricatured: groups often combine strategies for gaining recognition and materialist goals of equality (Bernstein, 2005;D. Fassin & Fassin, 2006a;Sabbagh, 2010), and I agree with these criticisms. For instance, I do believe that -especially in the context of the workplace - ...
Reinventing diversity : activists interfering with the managerialization of the law
Thesis
  • Dec 2019
A growing body of research analyzes how corporate social responsibility programs are used to absorb and neutralize the social criticisms coming from social and environmental movements and to superficially respond to the ensuing new regulations. If companies have powerful tools to resist changes and blunt the meaning of the law, then we need further research on how social movements develop forms of legal mobilizations to interfere in the endogenous design of organizational policies. While important bodies of social movement literature look at how social movement actors keep denouncing and monitoring symbolic structures exogenously – relying on contentious or disruptive repertoires of actions – I take the case of French diversity programs to explore ways in which social movement actors seek to get involved within the interpretation and the design of these organizational symbolic structures. Relying on a qualitative research design (ethnography, interviews, textual analysis), I study how activists and social movements organizations developed repertoires of actions to seek to change what happened within diversity programs of public and private organizations. Most insider activists and non-profit organizations I studied within this research used forms of prefigurative diversity programs, designing and proposing to organizations new practices to source job applicants, assess them, raise awareness about discrimination, monitor discrimination, or develop more equitable policies, in the hopes that organizations would appropriate or recuperate them.
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... No conhecido final de Bodies that matter,Butler (2019: 378) notou que o termo queer tinha a força de atrair "uma geração mais jovem que quer resistir às políticas mais institucionalizadas e reformistas". A desestabilização da ação política que está no coração da torção queer é explorada porGamson (1995). 8 Em Ranniery (2017b) busquei oferece uma conceituação topológica e performativa de normatividade a fim de problematizar o currículo como uma paisagem homogênea de poder. ...
Ecoar o possível: do currículo queer a queerização da teoria de currículo
Article
  • Dec 2022
Este texto performa a montagem de um nome e de uma figura, ecoar o possível, para interrogar a combinação entre teoria queer e (teoria de) currículo, argumentando em torno de um exercício deslocamento do currículo queer para a queerização da teoria de currículo. Para tanto, parto da experiência de orientar pesquisas descritas sob o arranjo currículo, gênero e sexualidade e organizando o artigo em três partes: a primeira explora as encrencas de uma leitura paranoica do currículo; a segunda retoma o possível de Gilles Deleuze e as noções de eco e escuta na teoria curricular; por fim, o texto situa o queer para além do reconhecimento da diferença.
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... For Macleod and Durrheim (2002, 56), resistance requires feminist alliances, and liberation involves a "freeing from the assumption that prevailing ways of understanding ourselves and others are necessary and self-evident." Migrants Pride enacted this politics of resistance, drawing on broader feminist social justice activism that seeks "to challenge oppression in [activists'] everyday lives and animated by a vision of an alternative social order" (Maiguashca 2011, 543), and also queer activism that seeks to disrupt and queer dominant norms of space, identity, and social hierarchies, offering a radically different vision of a queer future (Gamson 1995;Highleyman 2002;Shepard 2011 ...
The politics of truth at LGBTQ+ Pride: contesting corporate Pride and revealing marginalized lives at Hong Kong Migrants Pride
Article
Full-text available
  • Nov 2022
This article focuses on the articulation of lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, and queer (LGBTQ+) identities, lives, and rights at Pride events in Hong Kong. I argue that analyzing Pride as a Foucauldian “regime of truth” reveals how it is embedded in and reproduces broader ideological effects and structures of global capitalism. Focusing specifically on the corporate Out Leadership Asia Summit and Hong Kong Migrants Pride, organized by migrant domestic worker (MDW) unions and LGBTQ+ activists, the article explores transnational discourses of “global homocapitalism” that frame LGBTQ+ identities in individual and economically productive terms. By contrast, Migrants Pride highlights the exploitation of work and the precarity of MDWs and forges intersectional alliances with the feminist social justice movement. These differing conceptions of LGBTQ+ lives and needs form a contested “politics of truth” that exposes the tense and incongruous relationships between local and global, neo-liberal and collective, and rich and poor that underpin the dynamics of privilege and marginality of LGBTQ+ subjects in Hong Kong. The article argues that Pride’s co-option is an uneven and shifting process across global contexts. Migrants Pride, by enacting queer resistance to discourses of “corporate Pride,” offers a case study of how Pride can be a platform for social justice activism.
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... Campbell and Hartmann (2007: 253) Many people now freely combine or experiment with social categories to identify themselves. "In today's presumably more accepting world, people with complex cultural and racial origins become more fluid and playful with what they call themselves" (Funderberg 2013). One example is Özlem Türeci -one of the founders of the COVID-19 vaccine company BioNTech -who describes herself as a "Prussian Turk" (Oltermann 2020). ...
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«Ο σκεπτικός αδικεί τον ποιητήν»; (“Ο Ευριπίδης κατά διαφόρους σχέσεις εξεταζόμενος”), στο: Alexia Papakosta (ed.), Proceedings of the International Theatre Conference «Values of Ancient Greek Theatre Across Space and Time: Cultural Heritage and Memory», 6-7 November 2021, Athens, 2022, σ. 132-137.
Conference Paper
Full-text available
  • Jan 2023
Η ανακοίνωση εστιάζει στις παραμέτρους που συνέβαλαν στην πρόσληψη του Ευριπίδη στην Ελλάδα κατά τον 19ο αιώνα, με σκοπό να χαρτογραφηθεί η διαδικασία πρόσληψης του τραγικού ποιητή ως μέρους της γενικότερης προσληπτικής διαδικασίας του αρχαίου δράματος κατά το χρονικό διάστημα αναφοράς, και πώς αυτή η διαδικασία λειτούργησε για την επικράτηση των απόψεων για την ποιητική αξία του Ευριπίδη. Η δεξίωση του Ευριπίδη μέσα από τις μεταφράσεις, τις εκδόσεις, τις θεατρικές παραστάσεις, τα κείμενα και τα δημοσιεύματα σε περιοδικά και στον Τύπο, αλλά και ως αντικειμένου διδασκαλίας στην εκπαίδευση, πραγματοποιήθηκε βαθμηδόν από τις πρώτες δεκαετίες του δέκατου ένατου αιώνα. Μέσα από την περιδιάβαση στην προσληπτική διαδικασία του ηγέτη της ρομαντικής σχολής Ευριπίδη, παρακολουθούμε τη σκιαγράφηση του πορτρέτου του ποιητή με χαρακτηριστικά που τον ακολουθούν ως σήμερα. Ανιχνεύεται η διαχρονικότητα της προσληπτικής υπερ-αξίας μέσω της διακειμενικότητας, καθώς οι απόψεις για τον Ευριπίδη που εμφανίστηκαν στην ελληνική βιβλιογραφία του 19ου αιώνα φαίνεται πως έχουν φθάσει έως τον 21ο, κάποιες παραμένοντας ακλόνητα ισχυρές ενώ άλλες έχοντας διασκεδαστεί μέσα από κείμενα του 20ού, διατηρώντας ωστόσο την αρχική τους επίδραση ως προς τη φήμη του αρχαίου τραγικού.
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צועדות אל עבר העתיד: טמפורליות קווירית ומצעדי גאווה בעיר ישראלית
Article
Full-text available
  • Jan 2023
בעשור האחרון אנו עדים להתפשטותם של מצעדי גאווה בעולם, מערי המטרופולין הגדולות לעבר ערים קטנות, ואפילו לאזורים כפריים. תהליך זה כרוך בהתעצבות קבוצות אקטיביסטיות ושיחים פוליטיים מסוג חדש, הבוחנים מהם המקומות הנכונים וההולמים שבהם יש לקיים מצעדי גאווה. מאמר זה מתמקד באירועי הגאווה בעיר אשדוד, העיר השישית בגודלה בארץ, ובוחן ממדים של זמן ומרחב קוויריים המעוגנים בצורות אפקטיביות. ההתמקדות בניתוח המרחבי של מצעד הגאווה חושפת שהאקטיביסטים שואפים לכונן מרחב ללהט"ב בעיר דרך קיום מצעד מרכזי ובעל נוכחות, בעוד המרחב המוקצה למצעד בעיר הישראלית מנותק למעשה מהחיים העירוניים מבחינה מרחבית וטמפורלית. התוצאה היא שהמצעד הוא מעין בועה המתקיימת למשך שעות ספורות, והשפעתו על העיר ועל תושביה מועטה. לבסוף, המשתתפים הצעירים במצעד מסמנים היבט נוסף של טמפורליות, ולפיו המצעד נערך עבור צעירים, המסמלים בנוכחותם אפשרות להמשך של חיים קוויריים בוגרים באשדוד ולהתגבשותם. לפיכך, טענתנו המרכזית היא שמצעדים בערים ישראליות יוצקים לתוכם ממדים טמפורליים שבמסגרתם ההווה מדומיין כבועת זמן, המנותקת הן מהעבר והן מהעתיד, ואשר נשענת על עתיד מדומיין. מבחינה מרחבית, המאמר מראה שהלוגיקה המנחה את המצעד בעיר הגלובלית מועתקת למרחב העיר הישראלית כמעט ללא התאמות. דבר זה מחדד את השאלה אם העיר הישראלית יכולה להצמיח עתיד ללהט"ב שאינו תלוי בתרבות של העיר הגדולה.
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VALUES ACROSS SPACE AND TIME NATIONAL AND KAPODISTRIAN UNIVERSITY OF ATHENS
Book
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  • Dec 2022
This e-book aims at contributing to an in depth study concerning the reception of the Ancient Greek Drama Values across Space and Time, in the light of a fertile debate between Science and Art. There are seven units in this Volume, containing the following: 1. Values in/and Ancient 2. Theory/Adaptation 3. Ancient Texts 4. Comparative Readings 5. Ancient Theatre's & Drama's Educational Value 6. Directors' & Stage Re-readings 7.The Festivals, Moderator. With their well-grounded works, all the distinguished writers that participate in this volume, confirm the active and functional presence of the ancient drama as a vehicle of values internationally, timelessly and contemporaneously in the best possible way. They approach it as a field of vision, inspiration and experimentation, exploration, diversion, freedom and transformation. They highlight the importance included in its values and concepts, which not only survive and eliminate the limits of time and space, but also support, reinforce and serve the global culture in various ways. It appears through the articles of this volume, that the ancient drama may be re-created because of its timeless, updated handling, thus setting new rules for its interpretation and reception, re-defining the idea of “tragic”, shaping the concept of “classic”, constituting its complex dynamics and eventually influencing all the fields of life and creation. In our contemporary times of the multilevel deep global crisis that has affected all aspects of social and private life, the present material proves that the ancient drama, with all its many different aspects and anthropocentric core, is a challenging, inexhaustible field of research. The scientific, educational and artistic community, realizes and justifies its contribution to the formation of a “cosmopolis” of the Present and the Future, orientated towards values that have ceased to be taken for granted, able to place modern humans in the center of its planning and perspective.
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Silence, Death and the Invisible Enemy: AIDS Activism and Social Movement "Newness"
Article
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  • Oct 1989
Examining the dynamics and activities of the AIDS activist movement--here, through an analysis based on a participant-observation study of the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) in San Francisco--provides an opportunity to clarify issues on which social movements literature tends to be hazy. ACT UP mixes strategic action and material targets with expressive action and cultural targets; their cultural activity takes the form of boundary-crossing and the contesting of images. They often have difficulty distinguishing their targets, and are caught both denying and affirming that AIDS is a gay disease. I argue that these actions and dilemmas are best understood in the context of changed forms of domination, more and more an invisible and disembodied process of "normalization," with the state gradually less directly involved. This argument not only explains the particulars of ACT UP's activism, but also poses challenges to theorizing on contemporary ("new") social movements.
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On National Identity: Some Conceptions and Misconceptions Criticized
Article
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Critical reflections on the question of national identity and the role of cultural policy.
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Women's Culture and Lesbian Feminist Activism: A Reconsideration of Cultural Feminism
Article
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  • Sep 1993
The abstract for this document is available on CSA Illumina.To view the Abstract, click the Abstract button above the document title.
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"I Can't Even Think Straight" "Queer" Theory and the Missing Sexual Revolution in Sociology
Article
  • Jul 1994
Cet article presente les avancees de la « queer theory », theorie de l'homosexualite differente des etudes « gay » et lesbiennes, dans le sens ou elle sort les differences sexuelles de leur ghetto. Si la « queer theory » est redevable a la sociologie de son approche constructionniste, les AA. se demandent comment la sociologie peut integrer le phenomene homosexuel sans le marginaliser. L'originalite de la« queer theory »est de remplacer une strategie de droits civils par une strategie anti-assimilationniste de deconstruction, en offrant une approche globale des rapports de pouvoir sexuel a tous les niveaux de la societe
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The Politics of Inside/Out: Queer Theory, Poststructuralism, and a Sociological Approach to Sexuality
Article
  • Jul 1994
This paper outlines the main tenets of poststructuralism and considers how they are applied by practitioners of queer theory. Drawing on both Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida, queer theory explores the ways in which homosexual subjectivity is at once produced and excluded within culture, both inside and outside its borders. This approach is contrasted with more sociological studies of sexuality (labeling theory, social constructionism). Whereas queer theory investigates the relations between heterosexuality and homosexuality, sociologists tend to examine homosexual identities and communities, paradoxically ignoring the social construction of heterosexuality. Poststructuralism can inform a sociological approach to sexuality by emphasizing the generative character of all sexual identities. A sociological study of sexuality which is informed by poststructuralism would examine the exclusions implicit in a heterosexual/homosexual opposition. In this process, bisexual and transgender identities can become viable cultural possibilities, and a broad-based political coalition established. Whereas mainstream sociology focuses on the ways in which homosexuals are outside social norms, and whereas queer theory exploits the ways in which this outside is already inside, this perspective suggests that a critical sexual politics seeks to move beyond an inside/outside model.
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Differences and Identities: Feminism and the Albuquerque Lesbian Community
Article
  • Jul 1993
Etude de trois communautes de femmes homosexuelles aux Etats-Unis durant la periode 1965-1980. Analyse du processus d'auto-identification de ces femmes et de leur perception des autres membres de la communaute. Inscription de cette analyse dans le cadre plus global du mouvement feministe americain et de son influence sur ces femmes homosexuellles
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(Be)Coming Out: Lesbian Identity and Politics
Article
  • Jul 1993
The abstract for this document is available on CSA Illumina.To view the Abstract, click the Abstract button above the document title.
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Constructing Ethnicity: Creating and Recreating Ethnic Identity and Culture
Article
  • Feb 1994
Identity and culture are two of the basic building blocks of ethnicity. Through the construction of identity and culture, individuals and groups attempt to address the problematics of ethnic boundaries and meaning. Ethnicity is best understood as a dynamic, constantly evolving property of both individual identity and group organization. The construction of ethnic identity and culture is the result of both structure and agency-a dialectic played out by ethnic groups and the larger society. Ethnicity is the product of actions undertaken by ethnic groups as they shape and reshape their self-definition and culture; however, ethnicity is also constructed by external social, economic, and political processes and actors as they shape and reshape ethnic categories and definitions. This paper specifies several ways ethnic identity and culture are created and recreated in modern societies. Particular attention is paid to processes of ethnic identity formation and transformation, and to the purposes served by the production of culture-namely, the creation of collective meaning, the construction of community through mythology and history, and the creation of symbolic bases for ethnic mobilization.
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