Presentation Title
Black and Brown Queer Violence and Trauma in the Global South
Location
BTSU 315
Start Date
22-2-2019 1:30 PM
End Date
22-2-2019 2:20 PM
Description
The Poetics of Queer Violence: Anti-discrimination Laws and Black and Brown Bodies as Tragic / Traumatized Subjects Legally permitting marriage between people of the same sex in the United States did not consistently change social behavior, public policy, or shift jurisprudential positions in the Global South when considering queer bodies and subjectivities. Rhetoric in Latin American life, literature, and law, frequently (re)presents the queer subject as a rarificado, deviant, illegal/illicit character. Therefore, this paper interrogates how notions of citizenship and queerness remain polemical in the Global South. For example, Chile’s infamous "Zamudio Law," (la Ley N° 20.609) named for/after Daniel Zamudio (an LGBTQ-identified male youth tortured and savagely beaten for hours in a public park in Santiago because of his queerness) was approved by the House of Deputies in April of 2012 as an anti-discrimination law. The narrow 58-56 vote-victory suggests there is an ambivalence concerning queer subjectivity. Furthermore, it suggests that even in the face of such extreme violence and human rights violations, claiming progressivity as a post-racialized and sexually tolerant society is a literal and rhetorical act of public vulgarization. When considering the rhetorical permanence of law and social norming processes in the literature and law of the Global South, we must analyze how social interactions related to queer communities in conservative Latin American societies, such as Chile, Peru, and Brazil, have adversely contributed to a strengthening of violence literally and figuratively through bigoted public and judicial discourse. This analysis tackles the impact of Althusser’s notion of "how words do things" in life, literature and law, and the ways words transcend borders to become inhumane practices that limit queer citizens in Latin America.
Black and Brown Queer Violence and Trauma in the Global South
BTSU 315
The Poetics of Queer Violence: Anti-discrimination Laws and Black and Brown Bodies as Tragic / Traumatized Subjects Legally permitting marriage between people of the same sex in the United States did not consistently change social behavior, public policy, or shift jurisprudential positions in the Global South when considering queer bodies and subjectivities. Rhetoric in Latin American life, literature, and law, frequently (re)presents the queer subject as a rarificado, deviant, illegal/illicit character. Therefore, this paper interrogates how notions of citizenship and queerness remain polemical in the Global South. For example, Chile’s infamous "Zamudio Law," (la Ley N° 20.609) named for/after Daniel Zamudio (an LGBTQ-identified male youth tortured and savagely beaten for hours in a public park in Santiago because of his queerness) was approved by the House of Deputies in April of 2012 as an anti-discrimination law. The narrow 58-56 vote-victory suggests there is an ambivalence concerning queer subjectivity. Furthermore, it suggests that even in the face of such extreme violence and human rights violations, claiming progressivity as a post-racialized and sexually tolerant society is a literal and rhetorical act of public vulgarization. When considering the rhetorical permanence of law and social norming processes in the literature and law of the Global South, we must analyze how social interactions related to queer communities in conservative Latin American societies, such as Chile, Peru, and Brazil, have adversely contributed to a strengthening of violence literally and figuratively through bigoted public and judicial discourse. This analysis tackles the impact of Althusser’s notion of "how words do things" in life, literature and law, and the ways words transcend borders to become inhumane practices that limit queer citizens in Latin America.