Queer Theory

While “queer” as an analytical category emerged out of a poststructural critique of identity in the humanities, queer theory has been adopted by geographers as a tool to both understand and complicate topics as (seemingly) divergent as theorizations of identity and globalization. Although the earliest impact of queer theory in geography was most obvious in scholarship on sexuality and space, its influence can now be seen within a much greater variety of research.

In scholarship and in public fora, the word queer is commonly used both as a synonym for gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and/or questioning (GLBTQ) identities, or to indicate a combination of these identities, and as a term to signal the instability, or refute the stability, of these very identity categories. As many suggest, however, the use of queer as an umbrella term for sexual identity oversimplifies its potential as a theoretical tool. Instead, the utility of queer theory stems from its function to question or disrupt that which is considered “standard” and “normal” and to attend to the permeability of the boundaries, and binaries, on which “normal” is predicated. Under this framework, identity is understood as fluid and constructed in a way that is neither static nor essential, nor neatly bound by a heterosexual/homosexual binary that is otherwise presumed to be natural. Moreover, queer theory decouples gender identity from sexuality, desire, and sexual practice; in doing so, it calls into question the heterosexual matrix, or the socially prescribed relationship between sexual expression, body identity, and gender performance that is often taken as a given rather than as a historically and contextually specific regulatory framework.

Yet challenging the taken-for-granted organization of (sexual) identity is only one facet of queer theory. More broadly, it is applied to question normative constructs and social institutions: Queer theory seeks to both make visible and deconstruct formations, such as nation and capital, that have emerged from a particular, approved set of social relations. Luibhéid and Cantú (2005), for example, demonstrated that processes such as migration, citizenship, and nation building operate in relation to notions of normative sexuality, even as sexual identity remains a central issue for individual migrants (through institutional procedures such as reunification for spouses or other permitted familial relations). Sexuality, however, is situated within a broader context of power relations; to continue with the above example, migrants are policed on the basis of various categories, such as race and national origin, over and above sexual identity. Ideally, then, queer theory must account not only for the role and function of sexuality but also explore how sexual identifications and enactments are differently marked along lines of race, class, ability, gender, and other identity markers. For Luibhéid, among others, a queer analysis of migration requires attention to various [Page 2332]mutually constitutive processes through which migrants, “citizens,” and the nation are continually (re)produced.

Supporters of same-sex marriage wave flags before the start of a rally at the Pentacrest in Iowa City, Iowa, celebrating the Iowa Supreme Court ruling upholding a lower-court decision legalizing same-sex marriage on April 3, 2009. The rainbow flag as we know it today was developed by San Francisco artist Gilbert Baker in 1978. Baker explained that his colors each stood for a different aspect of gay and lesbian life: hot pink for sexuality, red for life, orange for healing, yellow for the sun, green for nature, blue for art, indigo for harmony, and violet for spirit. The pink stripe was later removed because the color was not available commercially for mass reproduction.

Source: AP Photo/The Gazette, Liz Martin.

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