→ neoliberal queer


Neoliberal discourses proclaim that free market access guarantees individual freedom and self-determination. Furthermore, the label of diversity promises to finally recognize formerly excluded differences. At the same time, neoliberal forms of liberalization domesticate, commercialize, and normalize difference. Gay and lesbian ways of living provide just one of many examples in this context. Institutionalized politics that postulate integration and use rhetoric of tolerance go hand in hand with the creation of new consumer subjectivities. So-called pink economy and creative industries discover sexual identity as an economic factor. At the same time, the precarization of jobs requires the labour force to deploy difference as cultural capital, hence to market one’s “otherness” and to perform it in accordance with existing stereotypes.

Neoliberal discourses proclaim that free market access guarantees individual freedom and self-determination. Furthermore, the label of diversity promises to finally recognize formerly excluded differences. At the same time, neoliberal forms of liberalization domesticate, commercialize, and normalize difference. Gay and lesbian ways of living provide just one of many examples in this context. Institutionalized politics that postulate integration and use rhetoric of tolerance go hand in hand with the creation of new consumer subjectivities. So-called pink economy and creative industries discover sexual identity as an economic factor. At the same time, the precarization of jobs requires the labour force to deploy difference as cultural capital, hence to market one’s “otherness” and to perform it in accordance with existing stereotypes.

Do these developments indicate that queer politics got integrated into the societal mainstream of neoliberal market logics, and thus lost their radical grip? Does “homonormativity” (Lisa Duggan) complement heteronormativity in securing the capitalist economy? Or are there queer positions that contribute to inventing alternative economies, which foster sexual and social justice simultaneously?

FORMER EVENTS
for a full overview of events, please scan the chronological archive

Sexuality and Economy

research group (Berlin), 2007-2010
The research group focuses on thinking about the entire range of relationships that link sexuality, gender, and economics. How are the histories of capitalism and sexuality interconnected? Are changes in what Foucault calls the deployment of sexuality overlap with the development of capitalism? A historical perspective provides a framework for further questions: How can a queer theoretical critique of heteronormativity contribute to the critique of capitalism? How can we resist the dominance of capitalism and the heteronormative structuring of gender and sexuality? Which alternative models and queer (economic) utopias are thinkable – and liveable? In 2007 a two-day workshop discussed these questions extensively. The workshop built on outcomes from regular meetings that took place prior to the event in order to come up with ideas for an international conference. Major topics included: Rethinking capitalism from a monolithic concept into heterogeneous capitalisms; the role of desire in upholding or transforming capitalist relations; the promise and problems of pleasurable identification with labour relations under neoliberal conditions.

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Gaga Feminism:
Rethinking Queer Anarchy

Jack Halberstam
lecture and discussion, Silverfuture, Berlin, 27. January 2013
Jack Halberstam, creator of ‘gaga feminism’, talks about the gagafeminist harbinger of change, which is radically transforming our understanding of kinship, gender, and sexuality. Jack and Jana Günther discuss how to accelerate this change through becoming “gaga“ ourselves, and the connections to anarchism that are involved.

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subtle? how sexuality gets racialized

The Subtle Racialization of Sexuality series
Workshop, April 23/24, 2012, TrIQ, Berlin
How is sexuality deployed for political ends? … in official state politics, in the media, in activism? Do political struggles acknowledge intersections between homo- and transphobia, able-bodiedness, and racism? Is “subtle” racialization a euphemism, or does it allow us to point out particular forms of dis/articulating racism? The workshop explores in more depth the discussions initiated by the lecture series „“The Subtle Racialization of Sexuality“ through activating knowledge and experiences from activism and project work.

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