GLQ A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies · 2008 · 371 citations · 2 references
HumanitiesCultural StudiesSexuality StudiesAfrican Diaspora StudiesQueer StudiesQueer TheoryBlack Atlantic StudiesBlack Queer StudiesLgbtq HistoryLgbtq+ HistoryQueer Diaspora StudiesQueer HistoryAfrican Diaspora HistoriographyAfrican Diaspora IdentityAfrican Diaspora ThoughtAfro-diasporic SexualityBlack Queer DiasporaGender TroubleHistories Of Queer DiasporaQueer Transnationalism
The article asks how theorizing the Black Atlantic as inherently queer would reshape queer and African diaspora studies and what new transnational, gendered, and racial geographies might emerge from such a queer reading of African–Caribbean dislocations. The study analyzes canonical African diaspora and queer theory texts—Gilroy, Butler, Lara, Brand—alongside creative works depicting queer relationships among African kidnapees in slave ships. The creative texts expand conceptual space to rethink submerged sexual and racial histories and highlight intersections between African diaspora and queer experiences among Haitian refugees, Dominican laborers, and West Indian gay activists.
What would it mean for both queer and African diaspora studies to theorize that the black Atlantic has always been a queer Atlantic? What new geography—or better, oceanography—of sexual, gendered, transnational, and racial identities might emerge through a queer reading of transoceanic dislocations between Africa and the Caribbean? This article examines canonical African diaspora and queer theoretical texts in dialogue with recently published creative texts that imagine queer relationships between African kidnapees in slave ships' holds. These creative texts, I argue, more expansively theorize conceptual space both to rethink submerged sexual, racial histories and to comment on the intersections between African diaspora and queer experiences in a contemporary era of Haitian refugees, transnational Dominican laborers, and international West Indian “gay” activists. Texts examined include Paul Gilroy's Black Atlantic (1993), Judith Butler's Gender Trouble (1990), Ana-Maurine Lara's Erzulie's Skirt (2006), and Dionne Brand's Map to the Door of No Return (2001).
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Paul Gilroy · 1993 · 554 citations