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Queering Uprising Infrastructures
Abstract
As a consequence of the dichotomous discourse of looking at LGBTIQ movements in Lebanon as either “victims” of state oppression and laws or “agents” of the western “Gay International”, very little literature has focused on the role of queer feminists in organizing for protests and penetrating discourses of uprisings. In this paper, I try to break out of this binary view of “victim of state” or the “gay agenda” and delve into the types of networks that are formed during revolutionary moments in Lebanon between the queer feminists and other groups. I use the organizing networks that evolved between the queer feminists and other sub-groups of the You Stink movement as a case study. The You Stink movement began as a protest against garbage issues in 2015 that soon evolved into a significant secular uprising -- with no affiliation to any sectarian political leader -- against the current political system. It was formed from various sub-groups that came together to organize (Geha 2018). Yet despite the fact that a large number of queer women were involved in those sub groups, little attention has been paid to queer women’s participation and their organizing strength and their input in rupturing the Liberal hetero-masculine discourse of the You Stink movement. In order to make sense out of those networks and connections, how they come together, organize, debate and even fight, I use the concept of people as infrastructure developed by Simone (2004) to look at spaces, persons, practices at the conjunction of politics and organizing during an uprising. Drawing on field notes from participant objectification, participant observation and interviews with queer feminist activists involved as organizing in the You Stink movement between summer 2015, and summer 2018, I try to capture the formation of infrastructures of organizing that allow certain networks to emerge between sub groups during uprisings, especially between queer feminists and other subgroups.
Discipline
Anthropology
Geographic Area
All Middle East
Sub Area
None