What Is Homonationalism?
Is society always progressing towards acceptance and tolerance? Does history always overcome the oppressor? Or is queer liberation always built on the back of someone else?
Shon Faye examines the concept of ‘homonationalism’, first proposed by Jasbir Puar in 2007. Puar argued that Western LGBT movements are often bound up with upholding the racist sovereignty of the nation state. How are we to consider her work a decade on? This year Trump attempted to roll back LGBT rights and others in Europe attempted to co-opt parts of queer liberation politics for nationalist ends. How does the critique of homonationalism help us to understand this?
- Published 28 December 2017