Revisiting Queer Theory in Language, Gender and Sexuality R - PowerPoint Presentation

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Revisiting Queer Theory in Language, Gender and Sexuality Research

Helen SauntsonYork St John Universityh.sauntson@yorksj.ac.uk@HelenSauntsonSlide2

I’m a queer demi-sexual gender queer although I use female pronouns

I’m a

cisgendered

bi-romantic asexualSlide3

Queer theory and ‘queer applied linguistics’?

Nelson (2012) is critical that, in language-focused education research, there has been little dialogue between applied linguistics and queer linguistics and calls for more attention to be paid to how linguistic analysis can offer important insights into gender, sexualities and education. Critical applied linguistics (CAL) – ‘the practice of applied linguistics grounded in a concern for addressing and resolving problems of inequality.’

(Hall, Smith & Wicaksono, 2011: 18)Queer applied linguistics (QAL) = CAL which is informed by queer theory/queer linguistics which is applied. Concerned with inequalities around gender and sexuality and has a social justice orientation.Slide4

Queer applied linguistics

Key issues:TemporalitySpaceNormativitySlide5

Language and sexuality ‘before’ Stonewall

Leap (Forthcoming 2017) – Looking back at the historical development of a field of applied linguistics is important. ‘Language before Stonewall’ – idea of a ‘before’ and ‘after’ – real-life events which help to shape the field.Slide6

Leap – Queer historical sociolinguistics

Conventional narratives exploring the history of sexuality […] frame discussion of history around certain big events, whose alignment into a single meta-narrative unavoidably produces a sense of linear connection – one event either occurring before another or after another. Linear connection in turn produces an appearance of chronology and genealogy, and with that, appeals to advancement, progress and triumph. (Leap, forthcoming 2017) Slide7

Halberstam – In A Queer Time and Place

(2005)Time and space are naturalised‘Queer time’ can both construct and resist normative identitiesQueer time produces ‘queer space’

BUT…Taking into account Leap’s more recent proposals, queer time can also function to exclude and restrict.A narrative of language and sexuality that ends in ‘triumph’ may disguise homophobic practices.Slide8

‘Normativity’

Motchenbacher (2014) – The concept of ‘normativity’ needs to be addressed, deconstructed and theorised. If we don’t question the concept of normativity, we don’t change it…Slide9

Halberstam (2013) – ‘Gaga feminism’

Concerned with social ‘breakdowns’[…] a practice, a performance, and as part of a long tradition of feminism on the verge of a social breakdown.

A gaga feminism does not need to know and name the political outcome of its efforts. More important is to identify the form that transformative struggle should take. Gaga feminism is for the failures, the losers, those for whom the price of success is too high and the effect of losing may even be to open more doors.It does make a difference, in other words, when people are researching sex/gender systems, whether they themselves are gender conforming or gender variant. (Continuing importance of self-reflexivity in QT – in relation to one’s own gender)Slide10

‘Current’ UK context

School – At odds with rest of society when it comes to gender and sexuality. Dissonances and tensions are often discursively construed and therefore can be interrogated through linguistic analysis.Despite recent legislative changes, research indicates that heteronormativity and homophobia continue to pervade schools and that the effects of this are damaging for young people identifying or perceived to be LGBT+ (Guasp, 2012; 2009; McDermott et al, 2008).Slide11

Louise: I started teaching when clause 28 came in

and so you know especially again teaching in Brighton it was all you weren’t allowed to say it I mean we are we’re allowed to do what we want I mean I remember clause 28 was about not promoting it really it was bizarre it was all shite wasn’t

it really lets put it franklySlide12

Nicola : I was reading something recently you’ve probably come across it there was an article in was it the

TES and somebody had done a big survey with this idea that teachers of my age thought you weren’t allowed to talk about homosexuality […] I was reading this and thinking gosh I wasn’t aware of that it

almost made me do it moreI: it’s interesting because a lot of people say that N: I think there was more I think there was a lot more awareness about that when I mean you know because we think we mustn’t do that we have that discussion I don’t think as an English teacher we talk about those sorts of things in the same way anymore I: yeah that’s really interesting some of the newly qualified teachers that have only been teaching for one or two years like in their early twenties have never heard of section twenty eight

N: no

I: which I think is quite a good thing

N: yeah

yeah

well

in some ways except there was this sort of spin off that you sort of rose in arms togetherSlide13

Vishal: if

I was to ever plan it which I haven’t done yet I don’t know whether I’m allowed to I don’t think I’m allowed to promote it under section 28 is that right it’s abolished because I didn’t know because when section 28 was abolished a few years ago wasn’t it

okay I just started teaching 2003 yeah erm so I never planned for discussion of homosexuality but that’s not something that I would discount in the future Slide14

Amy: the only experiences you know people have of homosexuality especially at a young age is either they see it on the TV after 9 o’clock at

night when they’re supposed to be in bed or from their parents and my father always told me that it was you know it’s not a good thing it’s a mental health problemSlide15

Josh: one thing that shocked me is that they were talking to us all about these dangers of sex and stuff in the sex education part and then they’d take us to a disease section and the teacher there she gets very into it and she talks about AIDS and that was

the only time when she talked about gays and stuff but she sort of talked about like AIDS was a gay disease like she was saying this spread from gay clubs Slide16

Ashford: I

asked the teacher and said we can’t do anything like LGBT and marriage because it’s illegal to do it in the church and schoolSlide17

Conclusions and implications

Schools are operating under an ‘audit culture’ which discourages risk-takingExpressions of overt homophobia and also talking explicitly about sexual diversity issues are both considered ‘risky’ practices in schools (in that they risk ‘social breakdown’)Homophobia has gone ‘underground’ – operates at a discursive level and is difficult to challengeSexual equality (‘triumph’) is becoming an accepted linear narrative which actually functions to occlude and obscure homophobic practiceSlide18

So…

Need to challenge linear (and dominant) narrative of language and sexuality – We can do this through the application of (new) queer theory e.g. Gaga feminismNeed to consider historical and temporal dimensions of language in applied researchNeed to incorporate theorising of ‘normativity’ and constantly reflect on our own historical constructions of normativity within the field‘Temporality’, ‘space’ and ‘normativity’ = concepts in applied linguistics which have currency in contemporary language, gender and sexuality research and therefore in

QALSlide19

References

Guasp, A. 2009. The Teachers’ Report: Homophobic Bullying in Britain’s Schools. London: Stonewall.Guasp

, A. 2012. The School Report: The Experiences of Gay Young People in Britain’s Schools in 2012. London: Stonewall.Halberstam, J. 2005. In A Queer Time and Place: Transgender Bodies, Subcultural Lives. New York: New York University Press.

Halberstam

, J. 2013.

Gaga Feminism: Sex, Gender and the End of Normal

. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.

Hall, C., Smith, P. & Wicaksono, R. 2011.

Mapping Applied Linguistics: A Guide for Students and Practitioners

. London: Routledge.

Leap, W. Forthcoming 2017.

Language ‘Before’ Stonewall: Language, Sexuality

History

.

McDermott

, E.,

Roen

, K.

&

Scourfield

, J. 2008. Avoiding shame: Young LGBT people, homophobia and self-destructive behaviours.

Culture, Health and Sexuality

10 (8): 815-29

.

Motschenbacher

, H. 2014. Focusing on normativity in language and sexuality studies: Insights

from conversations

on

objectophilia

.

Critical Discourse Studies

11 (1): 49-70.

Nelson, C. 2012.

Emerging queer epistemologies

in

studies

of

‘gay

’-student

discourses.

Journal of Language and Sexuality

1 (1

):

79-105

.Slide20

Image references

www.cbsnews.com (Stonewall riots)www.starobserver.com.au (Stonewall Inn)www.amazon.com (In A Queer Time and Place)