Abstract
"Between Community and Self: The Politics of Queer Organizing and Being in Post-revolutionary Tunisia" focuses on the experiences of queer Tunisians in the aftermath of the 2011 Jasmine Revolution. This paper analyzes the political dynamics behind the emergence of sexual minority organizations, and the complexities of creating a queer collective identity, processes that ultimately led into distinctions between a queer and LGBT politics within such groups. At the same time, the essay explores the individual processes of self-identification and queer becoming of Tunisian queer activists and community members, pushing against dichotomizing ideas of coming out, queer shame, and visibility. Engaging queer theory, anthropology, and Middle East Studies—and drawing, in particular, on theories of homonormativity and homonationalism developed by Lisa Duggan and Jasbir Puar, respectively—this research is attuned to the practical implications and geopolitical significance of queer rights discourses, and to imagining, in conversation with the Tunisian queer community, the contours of a decolonized queer rights discourse. This study draws on unstructured interviews with members of the Tunisian queer community, conducted in 2019.
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