Homosexual rights and the non-western world: a postcolonial reading of homosexual rights in international human rights law

This paper examines the calls for the international legal recognition and protection of rights for homosexual men and women. To undertake such an examination, the paper utilises theoretical paradigms from within the field of postcolonial studies. Opening with an overview of the theoretical bases and preconceptions of postcolonial analysis, the paper then examines the extant bases for the protection of the rights of homosexuals at international law. It then goes on to examine Dutch-American scholar Eric Heinze's calls for atreaty-based instrument to codify and enforce principles of non-discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation in international law. The paper argues that while homosexual rights are indeed worthy of protection at international law, the current means by which they are protected, and the current proposals for international legal reform in this area, articulate colonialist and specifically Western understandings of homosexuality and sexual orientation

Sexing up the international

This thesis takes sexuality as its subject matter and uses a methodology informed by postcolonial studies to explore new possibilities for thinking about the international, its construction, and its contemporary politics. I argue that postcolonial readings of sexuality can impel us to rethink the meanings and politics of international theory and to challenge notions that have come to appear fixed and unchanging. The thesis canvasses how such an intervention might occur – calling especially for a focus on the local and the everyday – and considers both the utility and the limits of the contributions sexuality might make to a rethinking of international theory. My arguments are made with reference to a series of specific examples from contemporary East and Southeast Asia: the nationalistically imbued gendered and sexed figures of the national serviceman and the Singapore Girl in Singapore; the political and social repercussions of the trial of former Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim on charges of sodomy; newly emerging homosexual identities in Hong Kong; and the connections between sexuality and disease that inform the Thai response to HIV/AIDS. These case studies exemplify some of the ways in which sexuality can work to recast traditional scholarly understandings of the international. They also illuminate a series of aspects that shape the encounter between sexuality and the international, encompassing issues of nationalism, globalization, metaphor, spatiality and knowledge politics. Through my analysis of these issues, I argue for a broadening out of the source materials that inform knowledge about the international and the pursuit of alternative modes of reading processes of international change and exchange. I contend that scholarship of the international needs to pay more attention to instances where the borders separating everyday, national and international spaces break down, and where we might detect new forms of knowledge about the nature, politics and functioning of the international realm

Contentment or containment? Consumption and the lesbian and gay community in Singapore

This article explores how gay men and lesbians in Singapore appear content to prioritise availability of consumer goods and services, lifestyle comfort and the availability of artistic representations over civil and political rights and social/political change. Contentment here acts as a powerful strategy of political and social containment of gays and lesbians who continue exist under the shadow of governmental erasure, censorship and oppression

The Model United Nations simulation and the student as producer agenda

The authors of this paper introduced an assessed Model United Nations simulation as a core component of the undergraduate politics and international relations programmes at the University of Lincoln. The authors use their experience of creating and delivering this module to reflect upon the institutional implementation of a student as producer agenda to guide curriculum development and pedagogy. They conclude that many existing trends within the teaching and learning of politics and international relations are congruent with the emerging focus within British higher education on research engaged teaching and learning and the development of students as producers of knowledge. They conclude by suggesting that these priorities are perhaps best implemented at degree programme level and that they should take greater account of a broad notion of internationalisation and the value of simulation-driven teaching and learning

Dangerous relations? Lessons from the interface of postcolonial studies and international relations

This chapter explores the relationship between postcolonialism and disciplinary international relations in order to highlight several issues likely to emerge as postcolonial studies engages with other social science disciplines. It suggests three key areas of concern: the need to avoid postcolonialism’s incorporation into other disciplines; the importance of remaining committed to exploring issues of politics, economics and materiality; and the necessity of defending postcolonial studies’ unique methodological and normative approaches in collaborative work. It concludes by asserting that the challenge of working interdisciplinarily has the potential to reinvigorate postcolonial studies itself

Reading racial gaze: western gay society and pornographic depictions of Asian men

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Postcolonialism incorporated?

For many of us within the field somewhat hazily defined as “postcolonial studies”, it was postcolonialism’s political focus and interdisciplinary reach that first attracted our interest. Postcolonial studies seemed to hold out new ways of engaging with the legacies of colonialism that transcended mere description or prediction and offered us paths towards alternative futures and political change – in the formerly colonised world, in the metropolitan centres and in our own scholarship and pedagogy. To research, write about or to teach the postcolonial world was to engage in a project spanning historical analysis, cultural and literary criticism, political studies, transnational and intercultural exchange and psychoanalytic theory. Early postcolonial scholarship brims with optimism of accomplishing both political and intellectual change: of undoing Eurocentrism, of challenging racist stereotyping and of forging alliances between the victims of history. Similarly the very interdisciplinary nature of postcolonial studies seemed to suggest new ways of thinking about the structure, disciplinary divisions and institutional location of contemporary scholarship. Yet as postcolonialism has established itself within the academy (especially in schools of literature and cultural studies), much of the optimism, interdisciplinarity and normative focus seems to have drained away. This paper argues for a retrieval of both the political dimension of postcolonial scholarship and a commitment to interdisciplinary problem solving. Drawing on the author’s own experience researching and teaching at the intersection of postcolonial studies, sexuality studies and disciplinary international relations, this paper suggests that as well as identifying what postcolonialism doesn’t say (and why), we also need to critically analyse its relationships with other discourses and disciplines. The paper also suggests that as scholars of postcolonialism we need to be critically aware of the knowledge politics and disciplinary divisions of the contemporary university and their impact on the possibilities for interdisciplinary collaboration and political activism

Consuls, consorts or courtesans? 'Singapore Girls' between the nation and the world

This chapter examines the brand persona of the "Singapore Girl" created to market the services of Singapore's state-owned airline. It examines the differences – and crucially, the similarities - between the globally circulating knowledges that surround the figure of the Singapore Girl, and the political, social and domestic contours of gender politics within Singapore itself. The Singapore Girl figure illuminates how feminine subjectivities have been shaped within and for the postcolonial nation-state. I argue here that this process is never purely domestic; the state’s preoccupation with conscripting women’s bodies, labour and identities into the service of meeting national goals and objectives is always conducted with reference to broader international considerations. It is this dual influence of international processes and national gender politics that has, for a large number of Singapore women, worked to circumscribe political activity and reinforce essentialist understandings of gendered behaviour. Reading the Singapore Girl enables us to see how gender politics in Singapore are shaped by the flows of global exchange and through their positioning within specifically Singaporean relations of power

Reading sexuality, cosmopolitanism and the global city narrative between Hong Kong and Singapore

Governments in both Singapore and Hong Kong have been assiduously remaking their cities – and their societies – in an attempt to position them among the top tier of global cities in the world economy. In both of these cities, knowledge economies, creative workforces and cosmopolitan values have become the new buzz-words, deployed by political elites and increasingly consumed by citizens eager to carve out spaces of competitive advantage. In such an environment, the works of scholars such as Richard Florida and Marcus Noland, on the economic value of creative industries and on linking the presence of creative and/or homosexual subcultures within a city to its economic competitiveness are received eagerly, if often uncritically. This paper examines government attempts to manage the social and economic implications of an enlarged arts scene and increasingly visible and assertive homosexual communities in both Hong Kong and Singapore. What happens when the arts become a venue for homosexual activism? How do ideologies of the “pink dollar” interact with governmental attempts both to liberalise societies but also to retain political control and popular legitimacy? Taking examples from these two great competitors for the title of “Asia’s World City”, this paper explores these questions and asks to what extent the intersection of economics, the global city and interactions with Western cultural and political flows (both historically and contemporarily) might give rise to spaces of opportunity – but also perhaps of closure – for sexual minorities in today’s urban Asia

A few respectable steps behind the world? Gay and lesbian rights in contemporary Singapore

This chapter examines the colonial origins and present-day scope of those legal and social structures that seek to marginalise queer Singaporean life, including the recently reaffirmed criminalisation of male homosexual sex within the Singapore Penal Code. It contextualises the Singapore government’s resistance to leading change in this area and identifies the sources of current pressures for reform. The government’s hesitancy over the likelihood and timing of any potential liberalisation is revealed as all the more incongruous given the existence of a large, confident and visible gay and lesbian community within contemporary Singapore. The chapter explores how Singapore’s enthusiastic embrace of global economic integration and its attempts to reshape itself as an ideal destination and competitive hub for transnational flows of commerce, finance, tourism, expatriate labour, and knowledge-based creative industries has served to colour contemporary discourses of homosexual law reform and queer social visibility and acceptance. It also points to how state managers have regarded many of the outcomes of such globalizing processes as conflicting with approved narratives of postcolonial Singaporean nationalism and state sovereignty. The chapter concludes by offering some predictions about the likelihood and extent of future legal and political reform