Event Title
Run to the Gully: Structural Escape of Jamaican Queer Communities under the Neoliberal Turn
Panel Name
LGBTQ Activism Here, There, and Everywhere
Presentation Type
Paper
Location
Humanities 133
Start Date
4-3-2017 11:00 AM
End Date
4-3-2017 12:30 PM
Description
This paper explores the existence of communities that operate in exile from the capitalist
world-system and in refusal of state surveillance and legibility. Building on spatial conceptions
of the state and strategies of escape as propounded by authors like Scott (2009), Lefebvre (2003), and Brenner (2001), I assert Grubačić and O’Hearn’s (2016) idea of structural escape in the possibility of creating exilic space in the case of the Gully Queens of Jamaica. I argue that this group participates in structural escape from the neoliberal capitalist state in recreating a queered community and existence. In addition, this creation of exilic community by the Gully Queens is situated within the conjuncture of the neoliberal fractionalization of LGBT identity. This moment involves the splintering of the LGBT community where those “homonormative” gay and lesbian persons thrive under a restructured neoliberal capitalist order and the commercialized "gay scene” (Duggan 2002). This trajectory occurs while leaving behind unaddressed concerns of those LGBT “subcultures” – such as persons of color, the working class, and of peripheral areas, who have achieved little betterment from political and civil gains such as “marriage equality,” with issues of economic and racial justice remaining unresolved. It is through understanding the historical materialist trajectory of LGBT identity formation in tandem with the “cracks” in space within the capitalist world-system that help to explain the existence of communities like the Gully Queens.
Run to the Gully: Structural Escape of Jamaican Queer Communities under the Neoliberal Turn
Humanities 133
This paper explores the existence of communities that operate in exile from the capitalist
world-system and in refusal of state surveillance and legibility. Building on spatial conceptions
of the state and strategies of escape as propounded by authors like Scott (2009), Lefebvre (2003), and Brenner (2001), I assert Grubačić and O’Hearn’s (2016) idea of structural escape in the possibility of creating exilic space in the case of the Gully Queens of Jamaica. I argue that this group participates in structural escape from the neoliberal capitalist state in recreating a queered community and existence. In addition, this creation of exilic community by the Gully Queens is situated within the conjuncture of the neoliberal fractionalization of LGBT identity. This moment involves the splintering of the LGBT community where those “homonormative” gay and lesbian persons thrive under a restructured neoliberal capitalist order and the commercialized "gay scene” (Duggan 2002). This trajectory occurs while leaving behind unaddressed concerns of those LGBT “subcultures” – such as persons of color, the working class, and of peripheral areas, who have achieved little betterment from political and civil gains such as “marriage equality,” with issues of economic and racial justice remaining unresolved. It is through understanding the historical materialist trajectory of LGBT identity formation in tandem with the “cracks” in space within the capitalist world-system that help to explain the existence of communities like the Gully Queens.
Comments
Michael Stephens is a PhD student in Sociology at Binghamton University, New York. His research interests include historical materialist conceptions of LGBT and queered identities and movements, and the "Greater Caribbean" within world-historical research.