‘Cake is not an attack on democracy’: Moving beyond carceral Pride and building queer coalitions in post–22/7 Norway

The pieing of a far-right politician at the 2016 Oslo Pride parade was met with condemnation from the media and within Norway’s LGBT movement. The pie-thrower, a member of the European queer-anarchist band Cistem Failure, was charged with committing an “attack on democracy,” a part of the criminal code strengthened after the 22/7 terrorist attacks in 2011 and sentenced to imprisonment followed by deportation. This article reflects critically on the dominant narratives of this event as well as Pride politics more generally, and places them in context with Norway’s increasing mainstreaming of right-wing populism and liberal LGBT organizations’ dependence on state protection and inclusion policies. Drawing on Emma Russell’s critical historical and queer optic, Jin Haritaworn’s regenerative analytic, and Cistem Failure’s alter-narratives, I argue that Norway’s growing “security governance” promotes a divisive othering and obscures the violent exclusion of “undeserving” queers; this presents a deeply disturbing challenge to the democratic right to protest and public dissent. In turn, I advocate for the urgency of a transformative, coalitional politics of radical care - unafraid of confrontation and refusal, committed to the everyday acts of leaving nobody behind and to envisioning a world otherwise.submittedVersio

Introduction: anthropology's queer sensibilities

This special issue addresses vital epistemological, methodological, ethical and political issues at the intersections of queer theory and anthropology as they speak to the study of sexual and gender diversity in the contemporary world. The special issue centres on explorations of anthropology’s queer sensibilities, that is, experimental thinking in ethnographically informed investigations of gender and sexual difference, and related connections, disjunctures and tensions in their situated and abstract dimensions. The articles consider the possibilities and challenges of anthropology’s queer sensibilities that anthropologise queer theory whilst queering anthropology in ethnographically informed analyses. Contributors focus on anthropologising queer theory in research on same-sex desire in the Congo; LGBT migrant and asylum experience in the UK and France; same-sex intimacies within opposite gender oriented sexualities in Kenya and Ghana; secret and ambiguous intimacies and sensibilities beyond an identifiable ‘queer subject’ of rights and recognition in India; migrant imaginings of home in Indonesian lesbian relationships in Hong Kong; and cross-generational perspectives on ‘coming out’ in Taiwan and their implications for theories of kinship and relatedness. An extensive interview with Esther Newton, the prominent figure in gay and lesbian and queer anthropology concludes the collection

Cyberspace and gay rights in a digital China: queer documentary filmmaking under state censorship

Owing to China’s austere censorship regulations on film media, directors of films and documentaries engaging with lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender themes have struggled to bring their work to domestic attention. Working outside of the state-funded Chinese film industry has become necessary for these directors to commit their narratives to film, but without approval of China’s State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television, these artists have had little chance of achieving widespread domestic distribution of their work. However, advancements in new media technology and Web 2.0, ranging from digital video formats to Internet-based distribution via social media networks and video-hosting platforms, provide opportunities for Chinese audiences to access films and documentaries dealing with LGBT themes. This empirical study assesses how production, promotion and consumption of queer documentary films are influenced by the development of social media within Chinese cyberspace. Through close readings of microblogs from Sina Weibo this study combines analysis of contemporary research with digital social rights activism to illustrate contemporary discourse regarding film-based LGBT representation in China. Finally, the study comments on the role that documentary filmmaking plays in China’s gay rights movement, and discusses the rewards (and challenges) associated with increased levels of visibility within society

Adolescent and adult first time mothers' health seeking practices during pregnancy and early motherhood in Wakiso district, central Uganda

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Maternal health services have a potentially critical role in the improvement of reproductive health. In order to get a better understanding of adolescent mothers'needs we compared health seeking practices of first time adolescent and adult mothers during pregnancy and early motherhood in Wakiso district, Uganda.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>This was a cross-sectional study conducted between May and August, 2007 in Wakiso district. A total of 762 women (442 adolescents and 320 adult) were interviewed using a structured questionnaire. We calculated odds ratios with their 95% CI for antenatal and postnatal health care seeking, stigmatisation and violence experienced from parents comparing adolescents to adult first time mothers. STATA V.8 was used for data analysis.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Adolescent mothers were significantly more disadvantaged in terms of health care seeking for reproductive health services and faced more challenges during pregnancy and early motherhood compared to adult mothers. Adolescent mothers were more likely to have dropped out of school due to pregnancy (OR = 3.61, 95% CI: 2.40–5.44), less likely to earn a salary (OR = 0.43, 95%CI: 0.24–0.76), and more likely to attend antenatal care visits less than four times compared to adult mothers (OR = 1.52, 95%CI: 1.12–2.07). Adolescents were also more likely to experience violence from parents (OR = 2.07, 95%CI: 1.39–3.08) and to be stigmatized by the community (CI = 1.58, 95%CI: 1.09–2.59). In early motherhood, adolescent mothers were less likely to seek for second and third vaccine doses for their infants [Polio2 (OR = 0.73, 95% CI: 0.55–0.98), Polio3 (OR = 0.70: 95% CI: 0.51–0.95), DPT2 (OR = 0.71, 95% CI: 0.53–0.96), DPT3 (OR = 0.68, 95% CI: 0.50–0.92)] compared to adult mothers. These results are compelling and call for urgent adolescent focused interventions.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Adolescents showed poorer health care seeking behaviour for themselves and their children, and experienced increased community stigmatization and violence, suggesting bigger challenges to the adolescent mothers in terms of social support. Adolescent friendly interventions such as pregnancy groups targeting to empower pregnant adolescents providing information on pregnancy, delivery and early childhood care need to be introduced and implemented.</p

Transforming Identities in Contemporary Europe : Critical Essays on Knowledge, Inequality and Belonging

Interdisciplinary in perspective, this book explores contemporary struggles around ‘identity politics’ in Europe, offering a unique glimpse into contemporary tensions and paradoxes surrounding identities, belonging, exclusions and their deep-seated gendered, colonial and racist legacies. With a particular focus on the Nordic region, it provides insights into the ways in which people who find themselves in minoritized positions struggle against multiple injustices. Through a series of case studies documenting counter-struggles against racist, colonialist, sexist forms of discrimination and exclusion, Transforming Identities in Contemporary Europe asks how the paradigm and politics of the welfare state operate to discriminate against the most marginalized, by instating a naturalized hierarchy of human-ness. As such it will appeal to scholars across the social sciences and humanities with interests in race, gender, colonialism and postcolonialism, citizenship and belonging. The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license

The poetics of climate change and politics of pain: Sámi social media activist critique of the Swedish state

This chapter discusses the ways in which Indigenous activists are strategically utilising social media platforms such as YouTube for affective appeal regarding the current global wave of environmental activism, and in so doing challenge destructive state-centric governance. It argues for the importance of understanding climate change as a political crisis with ecological consequences that exacerbates pre-existing social inequalities. To do this, we apply content and discourse analysis to selected social media interventions by Sámi artist Sofia Jannok, as a part of broader Sámi protests against state-supported mining companies’ destruction of Sápmi landscape and livelihoods. Inspired by Sara Ahmed’s Cultural Politics of Emotions, the chapter argues for the importance of connecting Sámi art, emotions and affect, and activist politics to expose the ways in which climate change centrally relies on unsustainable capitalist energy and settler colonialism anchored in nation-state governance, in this case, Sweden. It thereby aims to highlight the significance of Sámi social media activism for Indigenous struggles for political rights and existence. The chapter argues for the significance of analysing expressions of pain, injury, and anger in Sámi protest on social media, as they expose important connections between contemporary manifestations of affect on social media and the history of Swedish settler colonialism and contemporary structural discrimination of the Sámi.publishedVersio

Gender self-identification

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Introduction : Transforming identities in contemporary Europe

The nation-state level of formal, parliamentary politics is an increasing polarisation with contradistinctions appearing in the ‘traditional’ Left, Progressive, and Conservative politics. Adherent is an increasing politicisation of gender, race, sexuality, and nation connected to citizenship, resources, and identification. By insisting on making visible the epistemologies of colonial knowledge regimes that operate in neoliberal governance, the contributing authors stress the importance of location, experience, pain, and (story)telling from a position of marginalisation, othering, and exclusion to counter hegemonic and hierarchical structures of differentiation and disenfranchisement. Methodological concerns and struggles over knowledge production and their concurrent inequalities in and beyond the academic terrain and across historical periods have been central to this collaborative project since its inauguration. Situated within a geopolitical crisis that traversed all borders and group domains, the COVID-19 pandemic emerged on top of a longer period of economic austerity, growing inequality, intensifying pressures in academia, as well as the global climate crisis.publishedVersio

Anthropology’s queer sensibilities

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