Political Theory

H17(c) - Intersections of Race, Gender, Sexuality, and Power

Date: Jun 5 | Time: 10:15am to 11:45am | Location: SJA-611

Chair/Président/Présidente : Annamari Vitikainen (The Arctic University of Norway)

Discussant/Commentateur/Commentatrice : Annamari Vitikainen (The Arctic University of Norway)

Afrotopia: Fear of Black Queer Subjectivities: Seon Yuzyk (University of Alberta), Jared Wesley (University of Alberta)
Abstract: Homophobia is a problem Black Studies. It infiltrates all aspects of Black life, including the political, spiritual, and sexual. It creeps into our homes, our churches, work, the academy, the songs we write, the art we create, the worlds we cannot imagine. It inundates our interpersonal and familial relations. Heteronormativity is so entrenched in our communities that some mistake it for a “natural” part of Blackness. This problem runs so deep that Black intellectuals and activists are not exempt from its dogmatism. The naturalization of heteronormativity has troubling and debilitating consequences, not only for our political imaginaries but for those who do not fit the norm. The problem is that it captures Black political strategizing, proclaiming that “straightness” is the only way of being Black. This leads me to ask: How can we come to uncover the multiplicity of ways in which we exist in our bodies? How might we relate to our sexualities differently? How might these histories of dynamic sexual expressions reconfigure our understanding of racial capitalism? One way to approach these challenging questions is through genealogy. I understand genealogy as the study of the contingency of history that unveils the modes of governance and power relations that shape subjectivities over time. Through a historical survey of the mainstreaming of heteronormativity, we can better see how hegemonic ways of being were implemented through disciplinary and regulatory regimes, and how these forms of coercion engineer fear and ambivalence about existing outside of the heteronorm. This mode of analysis opens up ways to position heteronormativity as a problematic practice, premised on the logic of racial capitalism and exploitation.

Addressing Patriarchal Narratives in Psychoanalytic-Informed Public Policies: Jeremi Dolecki (Northwestern University)
Abstract: Psychoanalysis is central to critically engaging with the theoretical foundations of numerous public health policies that grapple with issues of alienation, loneliness, lack of belonging, sexism, and racism. However, one of the notable accusations leveled against psychoanalytic theories has been that they inadvertently reproduce patriarchic structures of oppression by including only the perspectives of men. In this paper, I investigate the ways that feminist political theorists wrestled with the problem of male bias in psychoanalysis while proposing a new way of engaging with both classical and modern psychoanalytic theories which would ensure that perspectives of women are not just included but prioritized and assigned the importance they deserve. In particular, I contextualize Object Relations Theory by using recent insights from neurobiology and neuropsychology, which underscore the importance of intimate interactions between the primary caregiver and the infant during the first two years of life in the experience-dependent development of the human brain – development that leaves significant and indelible marks on the person as a whole. This critical role, which, in our societies, is almost exclusively performed by those identifying as women, is often overlooked and taken for granted. I discuss the political implications of these neuroscientific findings, how this research can further feminist goals of creating more equitable households instead of subverting them, as well as how psychoanalytic theories provide indispensable context for interpreting this data and can inform political actions and agendas.

Utilitarianism's Boomerangs and the Meaning of a Punitive Society: Chris Barker (The American University in Cairo)
Abstract: Utilitarianism’s Boomerangs and the Meaning of a Punitive Society The questions typically asked about mass incarceration are about how and when it intensified – is mass incarceration (especially in the US) a product of implicit or structural racial bias or a rise in violent crime? The War on Drugs, or policy choices such as mandatory minimums? Policing choices such as “broken windows” approaches? These are crucial questions, but the problematization of this paper is made in a different register, namely through the historical meaning of punishment within punitive societies. Analyzing these societies, Didier Fassin asks about a “penal chain” which, through ethnography, can connect elements of a system from policing and arrest through trial, conviction, sentencing, and post-release. Through this study, he asks three questions about a punitive society: what is it, who does it punish, and why does it punish? This sociological approach demotes traditional theories of punishment from their traditional place in the evaluation of punishment and draws new attention to the “how” that explains the “why” of punishment. Thus, for example, warehousing (as a "how") draws attention to the limits of stated aims such as rehabilitation (the "why"). The particular interest of this paper is the question of whether the "how" of the US’s various regional penal regimes and their pursuit of punishment can be explained as democratic or authoritarian, retrogressive or nightmarishly “enlightened” why's? Beccarian egalitarianism is criticized by James Whitman for a leveling-downward effect, leading to a US penal style of punishing all offenders as if they were hard criminals, as opposed to the leveling-up effect attributed to continental Europe and especially to Scandinavian countries such as Norway. Is the meaning of Beccarian universalism that it creates a social boomerang, rendering the entire society one where repressive punishment circulates, as Foucault thinks? Or is there a genuine problem, violent crime, and an institutionalized will to over-punish attributable to the penal populism of county-level stakeholders, as John Pfaff argues? Or is the problem authoritarianism in one or another form? The paper examines utilitarian theories of punishment and their practical commitments (Bentham, James Mill, and Beccaria) for shortcomings of policing, surveillance, and over-incarceration. The paper is then better situated to answer the following question about the boomerang effect of punishment, and of the potential social utility achieved through improving and humanizing punishment: Will Foucault’s criticisms of Bentham and Beccaria, or Beccaria’s emphasis on certainty, leniency, proportionality, and publicity, cure the US of over-punishment and help to ensure that punishment is not an “act of violence” perpetrated by the public on an individual?