Queer International Relations (sovereignty, Sexuality And The Will To Knowledge)

By (author) Weber Cynthia
Short description/annotation
How are sovereignty and sexuality entangled in contemporary international politics? By analyzing figurations of "the homosexual" as "the underdeveloped," "the un-developable," "the unwanted im/migrant," "the terrorist," "the gay rights holder," "the gay patriot," and Eurovision winner Conchita Wurst''s "bearded lady,".
Description
Asked about queer work in international relations, most IR scholars would almost certainly answer that queer studies is a non-issue for the subdiscipline — a topic beyond the scope and understanding of international politics. Yet queer work tackles problems that IR scholars themselves believe are central to their discipline: questions about political economies, the geopolitics of war and terror, and the national manifestations of sexual, racial, and gendered hierarchies, not to mention their implications for empire, globalization, neoliberalism, sovereignty, and terrorism. And since the introduction of queer work in the 1980s, IR scholars have used queer concepts like "performativity" or "crossing" in relation to important issues like sovereignty and security without acknowledging either their queer sources or their queer function. This agenda-setting book asks how "sexuality" and "queer" are constituted as domains of international political practice and mobilized so that they bear on questions of state and nation formation, war and peace, and international political economy. How are sovereignty and sexuality entangled in contemporary international politics? What understandings of sovereignty and sexuality inform contemporary theories and foreign policies on development, immigration, terrorism, human rights, and regional integration? How specifically is "the homosexual" figured in these theories and policies to support or contest traditional understandings of sovereignty? Queer International Relations puts international relations scholarship and transnational/global queer studies scholarship in conversation to address these questions and their implications for contemporary international politics.
Table of contents
Acknowledgments Chapter 1: Sovereignty, Sexuality and the Will to Knowledge Chapter 2: Queer Intellectual Curiosity as IR Method Chapter 3: "The Perverse Homosexual" in International Relations: "The Underdeveloped" and "The Un-Developable" Chapter 4: The Out-of-Place and On-the-Move "Perverse Homosexual" in International Relations: "The Unwanted Im/migrant" and "The Terrorist" Chapter 5: "The Normal Homosexual" in International Relations: "The Gay Rights Holder" and "The Gay Patriot" Chapter 6: "The Normal and/or Perverse Homosexual" in International Relations: "The Euro-visioned Bearded Drag Queen" Chapter 7: Sovereignty, Sexuality and "the End of Man" Notes Bibliography Index
Review quote
Interrogation is the cornerstone of academic work, and Weber did not fail us in that department. Moreover, her sweeping survey of transnational and global queer studies render visible the difference between them and what she is attempting towards: a queer IR (Weber 2014, 596). Such a frame becomes all the more necessary in light of both successful and struggling lgbtq+ movements around the globe.
Review quote
Cynthia Weber continues to brilliantly and productively disrupt Disciplinary IR by destabilizing what the field holds most dear - ''the delusion of sovereignty.'' This boldly conceived and cogently argued text enriches International Relations and Queer Studies and decisively signals the ''arrival'' of Queer IR. It''s about time; no other scholar could do it so well.
Review quote
Such a fascinating book! Cynthia Weber shows us the crooked, messy, anti-normative - and indeed, queer - underpinnings of the field of International Relations in ways never previously imagined. Queer International Relations places ideas about sovereignty, internation