Political Theory

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

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

Chair/Président/Présidente : Renee McBeth (University of Alberta)

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.

Marriage as Slavery in Early Feminist Thought: Mary Jo MacDonald (University of Jyvaskyla)
Abstract: The comparison of marriage to slavery is an almost ubiquitous feature of early feminist texts, exemplified most famously by Mary Astell’s question in her Reflections Upon Marriage (1700): “If all men are born free, how is it that all women are born slaves?” The scholarly consensus today suggests that women did not intend to compare marriage to racial slavery, but were instead invoking the republican definition of slavery as any form of arbitrary rule. This paper challenges this assumption. Centering the literary work of Aphra Behn—England’s first female professional writer—I show how her novel Oroonoko (1688) offered an account of slavery in the colonies which strongly influenced feminist authors who came after her. By describing the harms racial slavery Behn’s work allowed for the emergence of new strains of feminist thought, providing women with theoretical resources, beyond the republican tradition, to understand and diagnose their own oppression. This paper shows how anti-slavery arguments were appropriated for feminist aims, even by feminists who refused to condemn racial slavery. In doing so, the paper sheds new light on the intertwined, and often fraught, relationship between feminism and antiracism—a relationship that persists to this day.

Addressing Patriarchal Narratives in Psychoanalytic-Informed Public Policies: Jeremi Dolecki (Northwestern University), James Farr (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.