research
Uneven encounters and paradoxical rights: embodiment and difference in sexual orientation rights and activism
- Publication date
- Publisher
Abstract
My
thesis
takes
the
intersection
of
sexual
orientation
and
human
rights
and
the
increased
tendency
towards
the
expression
of
the
concerns
of
sexual
minorities
in
rights
based
terminology
in
international
law
as
a
Deleuzian
‘problem’
to
be
explored
and
unpicked.
Sexual
orientation
is
a
singular
expression
of
a
complex
multifaceted
virtuality,
yet
the
term
-‐
understood
as
a
static
and
relatively
unchanging
denotation
of
a
particular
identity
and
mode
of
action
-‐
holds
increasing
purchase
as
a
human
rights
issue.
I
explore
the
way
in
which
rights
shape
the
expression
of
sexuality
within
institutional
and
activist
practices
in
international
arenas
and
suggest
that
the
complex
and
contested
encounter
between
sexuality
and
human
rights
in
international
law
exposes
the
problems,
limits
and
temporality
of
both.
By
taking
seriously
the
problems
inherent
to
the
encounters
between
sexuality
and
rights,
as
they
are
expressed
in
different
material
circumstances,
we
can
explore
sexuality
as
a
mutliplicitous
and
changing
flux
and
rights
as
a
dual
sided
paradox,
acting
simultaneously
machines
of
territorialisation
and
machines
of
deteritorialisation.
Thus,
I
suggest
that
in
their
engagement
with
questions
of
'sexual
orientation',
rights
act
as
both
modes
of
control,
restriction
and
exclusion
and
as
modes
of
communication
and
connection,
challenge
and
escape,
depending
upon
the
particular
circumstances
within
which
they
are
expressed.
As
such,
I
attempt
to
engage
with
the
embeddedness
of
‘sexuality’
within
particular
material
contexts
and
through
this
engagement,
explore
different
potentialities
that
are
implicated
within
divergent
enactments
of
rights
and
sexuality
in
order
to
critique
a
mode
of
action
that
remains
fixed
upon
abstract
discussion
of
ossified
‘sexualities’
and
transcendental
rights.
Furthermore,
my
aim
is
to
approach
the
encounter
not
only
as
a
means
of
critique
but
also
as
a
moment
of
uncertainty
and
a
site
of
productive
engagement,
vitality
and
becoming.
Thus,
the
key
question
to
be
asked
of the
encounter
between
sexual
orientation
and
rights
is
not
one
of
which
rights
have
been
violated
or
of
how
a
perceived
violation
can
be
expressed
in
relation
to
an
already
conceived
and
fixed
discourse
of
rights,
but
instead,
which
material
circumstances
have
facilitated
the
expression
of
injustice
suffered
by
a
sexual
minority
as
a
rights
violation
and
in
expressing
the
violation
in
this
way,
which
possibilities,
problematics
and
discourses
are
activated,
and
which
others
are
ignored