Shifting Positionalities: Empirical Reflections on a Queer/Trans of Colour Methodology

Jin Haritaworn

Sociological Research Online, 2008, vol. 13, issue 1, 162-173

Abstract: How can we study ‘Queer’, or indeed, should we? Drawing on fieldwork with people raised in interracial families in Britain and Germany, and reflecting on my own coming out as transgendered/genderqueer during the research, I reflect on the role of difference, similarity, and change in the production of queer knowledges. My entry point is a queer diasporic one. Queers of colour, I argue, have a particular stake in queering racialised heterosexualities; yet differences within diasporic spaces clearly matter. While ‘Queer’ can open up an alternative methodology of redefining and reframing social differences, the directionality of our queering - ‘up’ rather than ‘down’ - is clearly relevant. I suggest the anti-racist feminist principle of positionality as fruitful for such a queer methodology of change. This is explored with regard to a selection of empirical and cultural texts, including the debate around Paris is Burning, Jenny Livingston's film about the Harlem house/ball scene; the appeal that a non-white heterosexual artist such as South-Asian pop singer MIA can have for queers of colour; the camp role model which Thai sex work femininity can represent for queer and trans people from the second generation of Thai migration; and the solidarity of a Southeast Asian butch with feminine women in her diasporic collectivity.

Keywords: Mixed Race; Thai; Sex Work; Queer Sensibility; Racialised Gender Identities and Sexualities; Non-White Heterosexuality (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2008
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.5153/sro.1631 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:socres:v:13:y:2008:i:1:p:162-173

DOI: 10.5153/sro.1631

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Sociological Research Online
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().