Who speaks the language of queer politics? Western knowledge, politico-cultural capital and belonging among urban queers in Turkey

Abstract

Recent criticisms of queer movements have focused exclusively on homonormativity as defined by LGBT(I) politics’ relationship to the logic of neoliberalism in order to criticize the increasing depoliticization of these movements, and the normativities produced and upheld by them. In this article, based on ethnographic observations and interviews with activist and non-activist queers in İstanbul, Turkey, I show that class informs normativities through cultural capital beyond what gets circulated through neoliberal ideas of what is profitable, fundable, and respectable. I argue that queer critique must question whether ‘the political’ is a value by definition, and that we need to investigate what kinds of exclusions are produced under the sign of ‘being political.’