If you missed the Saathis talk on Thursday, you should really have FOMO rn xx
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After having attended the incredibly heartwarming and eye opening talk given by the Saathis this past Thursday, this class couldn’t have come at a more perfect time (or maybe it was in fact very cleverly planned by Prof Khan). The Saathis so generously and openly spoke about their experiences as racialised queer folks living in Montréal in the 90s, and as a racialised queer person myself, now living in Montréal too, it is safe to say that they left their mark on me in the best way possible.
In her work, Puar explores how Sikh and Muslim men, who are often conflated in Western imaginations, especially after 9/11, are marked by “queer” perversity in the sense of being positioned as outsiders to normative citizenship. According to Puar, “the turbaned Sikh victim and the related figure of the Muslim terrorist, both of whom are seen as conservatively heteronormative and anti-queer, yet in the perverse sexualities ascribed to them are almost too queer to rehabilitate” (170). In relation to this, she coined the term “homonationalism”, which serves as a concept that describes the alignment of LGBTQ identities with nationalist projects, such that queer subjects gain acceptance or legitimacy within the nation-state by supporting and reproducing its hegemonic ideologies.
Particularly for gay American Desis after 9/11, “homonationalism” revealed a complex interplay of race, sexuality, and nationalism whereby the intersectionality of their racial and sexual identities meant that they were often left behind by “mainstream queer anti-violence organizations, such as the New York Anti-Violence Project”, who failed to see the “relationship between queer bashing and what were narrowly defined as racist hate crimes” (168, Puar). The frameworks of “homonationalism” acted as a way for them to achieve conditional inclusion within American society as an attempt at distancing themselves from the stereotypically “perverse” or “backwards” representations of Muslim and Sikh communities. By doing this, South Asian queer diasporic subjects were able to align with the dominant narratives of US queer exceptionalism, by producing themselves “not necessarily as heteronormative but as homonormative” (Puar, 169).
However, this “homonational” inclusion came at a cost; the framework of “homonationalism” reinforced stereotypes about Muslim and Sikh bodies, framing them as inherently perverse and unassimilable. By participating in these dynamics, queer South Asians inadvertently upheld the racialised and sexualised othering of their own communities. Puar argues that “this queer exceptionalism may mimic forms of (U.S.) model minority exceptionalism”, so much so that “many activists and community members from SALGA in New York have voiced sentiments” in relation to “a rehashing of intersectionality as a viable framework” (173). This made me think of Priya’s presentation on Thursday afternoon at Concordia - the Saathis collective was a way for her to be able to explore and celebrate the intersectionality of her racial and sexual identities, which she had never previously had the space to be able to do. This speaks of the complexity of navigating homonationalism or queer exceptionalism for South Asian queer folks after 9/11. Although this was not the context Priya was sharing her experience in, it is worth noting the links that can be drawn between the two; the concept of “homonationalism”, according to Puar, upheld and reinforced these negative stereotypes attributed to Muslim and Sikh communities, however the Saathis did the opposite, with the creation of such an incredible, loving queer South Asian group, they were able to support and unapologetically celebrate this intersectionality despite the high political tensions, especially in relation to racialised groups, at the time.
(Please keep in mind that the South Asian queer experience in the US after 9/11 compared with in Montreal in the 1990s after the Québec referendum presents very different political and social climates. This is not a criticism of the decision of South Asian queer folk to adopt “homonationalism” as a means of inclusion and survival. All love and respect <3.)
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I did plan it like that and everybody SHOULD have FOMO