"Transnationalization" of the "homosexual subject"

The readings for Monday analyze the role of gendered and sexuality discourses play in the construction of distinct subject positions, and the implications of the use of such subjects within new transnational contexts (via Western imperialist projects or otherwise) - although in quite distinct ways. I took up issue with Enloe's analysis and was fascinated by Puar, which is why the two of them take up this blog post.

Enloe discusses role of masculinity and the consequent manipulation of femininity in "empire-making" - calling for a "feminist curiosity" as the way to reveal the gendered political motives of modern imperial projects (i.e. Afghanistan and Iraq). This piece, to me, came off as an incredibly one-sided argument for a feminist worldview, as if feminism (I beg the question, what type of feminism are you actually arguing for?) is the only and "right" way of seeing the world/analyzing politics. She explores what she calls the "privileging of masculinity", arguing for a more in-depth analysis of "women" in order to truly understand the role of masculinity in politics.

Within her analysis, I'm not disagreeing with the fact that the imperial projects she discusses are inherently masculinized (militarized, etc.), that political projects and governments utilize and manipulate gendered identities and norms for their own nationalist gain (Kandiyoti and Najmabadi already showed us that this is possible in a variety of ways). What I disagree with is a line of argument that pushes one distinct worldview - here, feminism (again, not sure what she actually means by this) - without being critical of it. Enloe's argument, to me, is a prime example of what many of the authors we've read (Mohanty, Mahmood, Abu-Lughod) have made a point to critique: writing through a distinctly feminist paradigm only reifies a gendered binary that simplifies local dimensions and other causal mechanisms. Enloe not only works within the gendered continuum (masculinity <--> femininity) that Najmabadi discusses, in turn reifying such a binary, but also creates another feminist/non-feminist binary that I find to be incredibly problematic.

Moving to Puar, she complicates our understanding of the "homosexual subject" and the role of such a subject position within the (American) nationalist project. Puar analyzes the concept of "U.S. sexual exceptionalism" as a biopolitical mechanism of social control. Such exceptionalism utilizes what Puar calls "homonationalism," or a national homonormativity that "operates as a regulatory script not only of the normative gayness, queerness, or homosexuality, but also of the racial and national norms that reinforce these sexual subjects" (2).

She aptly notes how the production of national subjects (whether heterosexual, heteronormative or now homosexual/homonationalist) is embedded within the formation of the U.S. as nation-state, the narrative of American exceptionalism (as not only a tool used in the "disciplining of the American citizen" but as an instrument of U.S. foreign policy) now dependent on the production of a homosexual subject. The discourse that works to create this new subject is one of "sexual othering" that, now functioning in a transnational context, further aids the U.S. imperialist project. As Puar notes, there is work being done by the dis/re-placing of particular subject positions - here the "homosexual subject" as homonational - within a transnational context; what are the implications of the "transnationalization" of distinct subject positions?

I also appreciated the notion of the necessity of a particular "exceptional" narrative - through use of "state of exception" discourse - that serves (through the discourse itself, as well as the temporality of such exception) to naturalize the "normative ordering" that occurs within American society (8-9). In exploring the queer subject, something I also found to be quite fascinating, Puar places such a subject position in relation to Rey Chow's "ascendency of whiteness" and the management of difference in the racial framing of homosexual subjects ("homosexual other is white, the racial other is straight" - something Long explores as well). There's a lot more to unpack here, but for the sake of space, I'll end with this: how can we further complicate the meaning and function of the term "queer" in navigating these varying narratives of exceptionalism?