Erika Alm | University of Gothenburg (original) (raw)
Papers by Erika Alm
Kulturella perspektiv, Feb 17, 2022
Established ideas about state responsibility and state violence are placed in a new light in time... more Established ideas about state responsibility and state violence are placed in a new light in times characterized as states of emergency. The following conversation addresses the role of the state in the safeguarding of public health, taking its departure in media debates and political debates about state responsibility in two countries that have been criticized for not taking strong enough measures to protect the very futuriority of the nation in times of a pandemic Sweden and Nicaragua. Both countries have been castigated for avoiding total lockdown and for having taken a passive approach to what Wendy Brown has called "the political management of the virus" (Brown 2020). At the same time, the rhetoric used to describe their respective strategies has differed vastly in dialogue we explore notions about governance, biopolitics and necropolitics as they are articulated and negotiated in national contexts that claim the label social democracies. One of the points of departure is that while the response to Covid-19 is often described in war metaphors, and hence as a state of emergency, the unjust and unequal distribution of life and death is by no means exceptional.
Philosophia, 2016
Learning to love, in Nietzsche’s terms, is the enactment of a corporeal generosity; it entails ch... more Learning to love, in Nietzsche’s terms, is the enactment of a corporeal generosity; it entails changes in the one who ‘must learn’ to love. Distinguishing what, following Gail Weiss, we might term an ‘embodied ethics’ (1999, 158) from an ethics of ressentiment is the embodied transformation of the one who loves. Rather than seeking changes in the bodies of children with atypically sexed anatomies, the imperative for change is located in the bodies of parents, in physicians, in the rest of us. (87)
lambda nordica
IN WHAT WAYS can queer theoretical approaches to anti-gender politics offer meaningful insights i... more IN WHAT WAYS can queer theoretical approaches to anti-gender politics offer meaningful insights into and new perspectives on how to respond to, alleviate and complicate the analysis of reactionary mobilisations, inside, outside and on the borders of the academy? Whereas recent years have seen a wealth of scholarly publishing on anti-gender campaigns, much of which chronicles the organised, networked, and transnational attacks on LGBTQ+ populations and gender and queer studies and scholars, there have been relatively few concerted engagements that seek to analyse these campaigns and their effects through the lens of queer theory itself. We were curious about what added knowledge about current anti-gender politics-defined in short as reactionary and populist mobilisations against gender equality and sexual democracy (see e.g., Graff & Korolczuk 2022)-could be gleaned from engaging queer theory. To this end, by utilising our editorship of lambda nordica, we wanted to offer a platform for exploring the conceptual tools that queer theory can offer in the project of analysing reactionary mobilisations against gender, sexuality, and democracy itself, and-perhaps-inspire us to move towards generative futures, politically and theoretically. This special issue examines contemporary anti-gender politics and contains a number of promising theoretical lenses from sociological, 8 λ ERIKA ALM & ELISABETH L. ENGEBRETSEN psychoanalytic, queer, trans, gender and feminist scholarship that may contribute to an understanding of their complexities. In so doing, it offers careful, generative critiques and highlights some of the limitations of existing approaches, including those of one-dimensionality, historical presentism, racism, nationalism and femonationalism. Anti-gender Presence in Academia and Its Effects Shortly after commencing our editorship of lambda nordica in spring 2020, we decided to plan a special issue on anti-gender politics in relation to LGBTQ+ and queer scholarship and liveability. It felt urgent then, and it feels even more urgent now as we are wrapping up the editorial work in early 2023. Anti-gender attacks on academic gender studies programs and individual scholars, especially those of us who identify as queer, non-binary or trans or work in such fields, proliferate in many countries in Europe (e.g.
Springer eBooks, 2023
Control of its citizens is evidently a fundamental principle for the nationstate: the imagined ho... more Control of its citizens is evidently a fundamental principle for the nationstate: the imagined homogenous nation governed by its own sovereign state (Anderson, 1983). Reproduction is a core question for the state and as such a site of struggle between the reproduction of the nation and the reproduction of liveable lives. Activists around the world have a complicated relation to the state, as they struggle for extended forms of community and the abolition of state boundaries on the one hand and for a reformed state and changing the very definitions of lives and citizens on the other. One of the constants in scholarly and activist conversations
lambda nordica
On the Importance of Queer Scholarship in Times of War THIS EDITORIAL IS written at a time when m... more On the Importance of Queer Scholarship in Times of War THIS EDITORIAL IS written at a time when media outlets all over the world are dominated by details of the humanitarian crisis brought on by the Russian invasion of and war on Ukraine, and the ensuing political conversations about what constitutes foundational concepts like democracy, nation, peace, security, state accountability and responsibility. In feminist and queer academia and activist movements, statements of solidarity are being written and demonstrations are being organised. Many of us are sitting with colleagues, students, and friends from Ukraine, and dissidents from Russia, listening to their accounts of the atrocities of war, as we have listened to colleagues, students, and friends from other places before: Syria, Kosovo, Palestine, Afghanistan, and Kurdistan to name but a few locations. Some of the analyses most urgently needed at this point are those that critically examine the relation between the Russian governmental propaganda claiming that the war on Ukraine is an operation to defend Russian interests and core values against "corrupt", "perverse" Western influences, and that of reactionary anti-gender, homophobic and-especially-transphobic movements surging in Europe and beyond. Cues can be taken from the queer scholarly work already published, for example that on the use of the spectre of LGBT in nationalist move
Pluralistic Struggles in Gender, Sexuality and Coloniality, 2020
Departing from previous scholarly work that has studied the effects of state violence and conditi... more Departing from previous scholarly work that has studied the effects of state violence and conditional state recognition on the living conditions of gender-variant people (Beauchamp 2019; Linander 2018), this chapter explores the function of narratives of the state in discourses on trans rights in Sweden. It provides insights into the relation between state and civil society, and the practicalities of governance, through an examination of how activists interpellate the state and hold it accountable. With a critical inquiry into the hegemonic narrative that the Swedish state has a responsibility to alleviate the suffering of gender-variant citizens as a background, it addresses and situates the tension between liberal rights discourses of trans rights on the one hand and transformative politics asking for restorative justice on the other hand (Spade 2011). The argument is that the interpellation of the state can be understood as a strategy to repoliticise the violent effects of govern...
European Journal of Women's Studies
European Journal of Social Work
Introduction to The Performative Power of Cultural Products in the Making of Gender, Sexualities,... more Introduction to The Performative Power of Cultural Products in the Making of Gender, Sexualities, and Transnational Communities Normative notions of gender and sexuality, and the way they are contested, (re)-constructed, interpreted and articulated in practice, have been studied within the Humanities and Social sciences at both macro and micro level. Studies of social movements, resistance, organising and community building have been essential in regard to the expansion of this diverse field of knowledge. When scholars have explored communities that emerge as norms of gender and sexuality cross national borders and impact upon transnational spaces, they have often focused on human subjects, organisations, political groups, etcetera (Yuval Davies 2011). However, if we are interested in understanding the complex and dynamic processes behind the formations of communities of belonging in a transnational and digitalised world, we also need new starting points and innovative methodological tools. This special issue of Culture Unbound sets out to explore the function of cultural products in the negotiation and consolidation of transnational communities of belonging, gathering articles that are theoretically and methodologically based on an understanding of cultural products as performative, as boundary objects, floating signifiers, and as actants. The articles follow cultural products like the rainbow flag, the veil, manga, and elongated labia across local and transnational borders and contexts, paying attention to what such a methodological move can tell us about communities of belonging. The authors featured in this special issue acknowledge that cultural products can be used as tools for marketisation and neoliberalism, for religious and secularist purposes, as well as for political strategies, struggles and policies. Through following cultural products transnationally, the authors move in unpredictable directions, uncovering new perspectives and narratives. Cultural products come into being in complex entanglements with other materialities and discourses such as technologies, artefacts, subjects, norms, desires
Culture, Health & Sexuality, 2019
‘I carry it with me’ – (Un)safe spaces and perceived health among people with trans experiences l... more ‘I carry it with me’ – (Un)safe spaces and perceived health among people with trans experiences living in Sweden
Gender, Place & Culture, 2018
This introduction presents the points of departure for the themed section 'Ungendering Europe: Cr... more This introduction presents the points of departure for the themed section 'Ungendering Europe: Critical Engagements with Key Objects in Feminism' and introduces the eight articles included in the collection.
Health: An Interdisciplinary Journal for the Social Study of Health, Illness and Medicine, 2017
The few previous studies investigating regulation of gender in trans-specific healthcare are main... more The few previous studies investigating regulation of gender in trans-specific healthcare are mainly based on text material and interviews with care-providers or consist solely of theoretical analyses. There is a lack of studies analysing how the regulation of gender is expressed in the care-seeker’s own experiences, especially in a Nordic context. The aim of this study is to analyse narratives of individuals with trans experiences (sometimes called transgender people) to examine how gender performances can be regulated in trans-specific care in Sweden. The conceptual framework is inspired by trans studies, a Foucauldian analysis of power, queer phenomenology and the concept of cisnormativity. Fourteen interviews with people with trans experiences are analysed with constructivist grounded theory. The participants’ experiences indicate that gender is constructed as norm-conforming, binary and stable in trans-specific healthcare. This gendered position is resisted, negotiated and embra...
Culture Unbound: Journal of Current Cultural Research, 2017
Normative notions of gender and sexuality, and the way they are contested, (re)-constructed, inte... more Normative notions of gender and sexuality, and the way they are contested, (re)-constructed, interpreted and articulated in practice, have been studied within the Humanities and Social sciences at both macro and micro level. Studies of social movements, resistance, organising and community building have been essential in regard to the expansion of this diverse field of knowledge. When scholars have explored communities that emerge as norms of gender and sexuality cross national borders and impact upon transnational spaces, they have often focused on human subjects, organisations, political groups, etcetera (Yuval Davies 2011). However, if we are interested in understanding the complex and dynamic processes behind the formations of communities of belonging in a transnational and digitalised world, we also need new starting points and innovative methodological tools. This special issue of Culture Unbound sets out to explore the function of cultural products in the negotiation and consolidation of transnational communities of belonging, gathering articles that are theoretically and methodologically based on an understanding of cultural products as performative, as boundary objects, floating signifiers, and as actants. The articles follow cultural products like the rainbow flag, the veil, manga, and elongated labia across local and transnational borders and contexts, paying attention to what such a methodological move can tell us about communities of belonging. The authors featured in this special issue acknowledge that cultural products can be used as tools for marketisation and neoliberalism, for religious and secularist purposes, as well as for political strategies, struggles and policies. Through following cultural products transnationally, the authors move in unpredictable directions, uncovering new perspectives and narratives. Cultural products come into being in complex entanglements with other materialities and discourses such as technologies, artefacts, subjects, norms, desires
Somatechnics, 2013
This article makes an inquiry into how the orientation towards consensus shapes the somatechnics ... more This article makes an inquiry into how the orientation towards consensus shapes the somatechnics of intersex ( Ahmed 2006 , 2007 ; Sullivan 2009a , 2009b ). The article takes its departure in the concept of somatechnics and the theoretical framework of biomedicalisation ( Clarke et al 2003 ), two theoretical perspectives that transgress the standoff between discursive and material approaches and challenge the notion that there is such a thing as pre-discursive, purely material bodies that discourses act upon, pointing towards the fact that ‘modes and practices of corporeality are always-already, and without exception, in-relation and in-process’ ( Sullivan 2009a ). In order to explore the complexity of the somatechnics of intersex, encompassing networks of organisations, communication channels, alliances, narratives, clinical protocols, surgical interventions, feminist critique and activist resistance, this inquiry tries to situate somatechnical practices by means of exploring local...
Culture Unbound: Journal of Current Cultural Research, 2017
This article analyzes the frictions the rainbow flag creates between transnational, national and ... more This article analyzes the frictions the rainbow flag creates between transnational, national and translocal discourses and materialities. It focuses on the ambivalent role that the transnational ‘rainbow’ space plays for community building for LGBTQ activists in in Pakistan. The rainbow flag can function as a way to mobilize an imagined transnational community of belonging, enabling people to politicize their experiences of discrimination as a demand of recognition directed at the state. But it can also enable homonationalism and transnational middle class formations that exclude groups of people, for example illiterates and people perceived of as traditional, such as Khwaja Siras. The article is based on auto-ethnographic reflections on encounters with activists in Pakistan, and critically discusses the problem of feeling ‘too comfortable’, as white, Western, middle-class researchers, exploring ‘imperial narratives’ dominating the feminist and LGBTQ activist transnational imagined ...
Pluralistic Struggles in Gender, Sexuality and Coloniality
I den bästa av världar [In the best of worlds] Den bästa av dagar [The best of days] Vi slapp ju ... more I den bästa av världar [In the best of worlds] Den bästa av dagar [The best of days] Vi slapp ju nazister [We did not have Nazis] Så vad ska vi klaga? [So what should we complain about?] In the above poem, trans* activist and spoken word poet Yolanda Aurora Bohm Ramirez (2018) both names the ways the lives of specific groups of people in Sweden are threatened by the increasing neo-Nazi violence and illuminates the response of the majoritarian population to these threats: their demands of silence where protest and criticism is made nearly impossible.
Kulturella perspektiv, Feb 17, 2022
Established ideas about state responsibility and state violence are placed in a new light in time... more Established ideas about state responsibility and state violence are placed in a new light in times characterized as states of emergency. The following conversation addresses the role of the state in the safeguarding of public health, taking its departure in media debates and political debates about state responsibility in two countries that have been criticized for not taking strong enough measures to protect the very futuriority of the nation in times of a pandemic Sweden and Nicaragua. Both countries have been castigated for avoiding total lockdown and for having taken a passive approach to what Wendy Brown has called "the political management of the virus" (Brown 2020). At the same time, the rhetoric used to describe their respective strategies has differed vastly in dialogue we explore notions about governance, biopolitics and necropolitics as they are articulated and negotiated in national contexts that claim the label social democracies. One of the points of departure is that while the response to Covid-19 is often described in war metaphors, and hence as a state of emergency, the unjust and unequal distribution of life and death is by no means exceptional.
Philosophia, 2016
Learning to love, in Nietzsche’s terms, is the enactment of a corporeal generosity; it entails ch... more Learning to love, in Nietzsche’s terms, is the enactment of a corporeal generosity; it entails changes in the one who ‘must learn’ to love. Distinguishing what, following Gail Weiss, we might term an ‘embodied ethics’ (1999, 158) from an ethics of ressentiment is the embodied transformation of the one who loves. Rather than seeking changes in the bodies of children with atypically sexed anatomies, the imperative for change is located in the bodies of parents, in physicians, in the rest of us. (87)
lambda nordica
IN WHAT WAYS can queer theoretical approaches to anti-gender politics offer meaningful insights i... more IN WHAT WAYS can queer theoretical approaches to anti-gender politics offer meaningful insights into and new perspectives on how to respond to, alleviate and complicate the analysis of reactionary mobilisations, inside, outside and on the borders of the academy? Whereas recent years have seen a wealth of scholarly publishing on anti-gender campaigns, much of which chronicles the organised, networked, and transnational attacks on LGBTQ+ populations and gender and queer studies and scholars, there have been relatively few concerted engagements that seek to analyse these campaigns and their effects through the lens of queer theory itself. We were curious about what added knowledge about current anti-gender politics-defined in short as reactionary and populist mobilisations against gender equality and sexual democracy (see e.g., Graff & Korolczuk 2022)-could be gleaned from engaging queer theory. To this end, by utilising our editorship of lambda nordica, we wanted to offer a platform for exploring the conceptual tools that queer theory can offer in the project of analysing reactionary mobilisations against gender, sexuality, and democracy itself, and-perhaps-inspire us to move towards generative futures, politically and theoretically. This special issue examines contemporary anti-gender politics and contains a number of promising theoretical lenses from sociological, 8 λ ERIKA ALM & ELISABETH L. ENGEBRETSEN psychoanalytic, queer, trans, gender and feminist scholarship that may contribute to an understanding of their complexities. In so doing, it offers careful, generative critiques and highlights some of the limitations of existing approaches, including those of one-dimensionality, historical presentism, racism, nationalism and femonationalism. Anti-gender Presence in Academia and Its Effects Shortly after commencing our editorship of lambda nordica in spring 2020, we decided to plan a special issue on anti-gender politics in relation to LGBTQ+ and queer scholarship and liveability. It felt urgent then, and it feels even more urgent now as we are wrapping up the editorial work in early 2023. Anti-gender attacks on academic gender studies programs and individual scholars, especially those of us who identify as queer, non-binary or trans or work in such fields, proliferate in many countries in Europe (e.g.
Springer eBooks, 2023
Control of its citizens is evidently a fundamental principle for the nationstate: the imagined ho... more Control of its citizens is evidently a fundamental principle for the nationstate: the imagined homogenous nation governed by its own sovereign state (Anderson, 1983). Reproduction is a core question for the state and as such a site of struggle between the reproduction of the nation and the reproduction of liveable lives. Activists around the world have a complicated relation to the state, as they struggle for extended forms of community and the abolition of state boundaries on the one hand and for a reformed state and changing the very definitions of lives and citizens on the other. One of the constants in scholarly and activist conversations
lambda nordica
On the Importance of Queer Scholarship in Times of War THIS EDITORIAL IS written at a time when m... more On the Importance of Queer Scholarship in Times of War THIS EDITORIAL IS written at a time when media outlets all over the world are dominated by details of the humanitarian crisis brought on by the Russian invasion of and war on Ukraine, and the ensuing political conversations about what constitutes foundational concepts like democracy, nation, peace, security, state accountability and responsibility. In feminist and queer academia and activist movements, statements of solidarity are being written and demonstrations are being organised. Many of us are sitting with colleagues, students, and friends from Ukraine, and dissidents from Russia, listening to their accounts of the atrocities of war, as we have listened to colleagues, students, and friends from other places before: Syria, Kosovo, Palestine, Afghanistan, and Kurdistan to name but a few locations. Some of the analyses most urgently needed at this point are those that critically examine the relation between the Russian governmental propaganda claiming that the war on Ukraine is an operation to defend Russian interests and core values against "corrupt", "perverse" Western influences, and that of reactionary anti-gender, homophobic and-especially-transphobic movements surging in Europe and beyond. Cues can be taken from the queer scholarly work already published, for example that on the use of the spectre of LGBT in nationalist move
Pluralistic Struggles in Gender, Sexuality and Coloniality, 2020
Departing from previous scholarly work that has studied the effects of state violence and conditi... more Departing from previous scholarly work that has studied the effects of state violence and conditional state recognition on the living conditions of gender-variant people (Beauchamp 2019; Linander 2018), this chapter explores the function of narratives of the state in discourses on trans rights in Sweden. It provides insights into the relation between state and civil society, and the practicalities of governance, through an examination of how activists interpellate the state and hold it accountable. With a critical inquiry into the hegemonic narrative that the Swedish state has a responsibility to alleviate the suffering of gender-variant citizens as a background, it addresses and situates the tension between liberal rights discourses of trans rights on the one hand and transformative politics asking for restorative justice on the other hand (Spade 2011). The argument is that the interpellation of the state can be understood as a strategy to repoliticise the violent effects of govern...
European Journal of Women's Studies
European Journal of Social Work
Introduction to The Performative Power of Cultural Products in the Making of Gender, Sexualities,... more Introduction to The Performative Power of Cultural Products in the Making of Gender, Sexualities, and Transnational Communities Normative notions of gender and sexuality, and the way they are contested, (re)-constructed, interpreted and articulated in practice, have been studied within the Humanities and Social sciences at both macro and micro level. Studies of social movements, resistance, organising and community building have been essential in regard to the expansion of this diverse field of knowledge. When scholars have explored communities that emerge as norms of gender and sexuality cross national borders and impact upon transnational spaces, they have often focused on human subjects, organisations, political groups, etcetera (Yuval Davies 2011). However, if we are interested in understanding the complex and dynamic processes behind the formations of communities of belonging in a transnational and digitalised world, we also need new starting points and innovative methodological tools. This special issue of Culture Unbound sets out to explore the function of cultural products in the negotiation and consolidation of transnational communities of belonging, gathering articles that are theoretically and methodologically based on an understanding of cultural products as performative, as boundary objects, floating signifiers, and as actants. The articles follow cultural products like the rainbow flag, the veil, manga, and elongated labia across local and transnational borders and contexts, paying attention to what such a methodological move can tell us about communities of belonging. The authors featured in this special issue acknowledge that cultural products can be used as tools for marketisation and neoliberalism, for religious and secularist purposes, as well as for political strategies, struggles and policies. Through following cultural products transnationally, the authors move in unpredictable directions, uncovering new perspectives and narratives. Cultural products come into being in complex entanglements with other materialities and discourses such as technologies, artefacts, subjects, norms, desires
Culture, Health & Sexuality, 2019
‘I carry it with me’ – (Un)safe spaces and perceived health among people with trans experiences l... more ‘I carry it with me’ – (Un)safe spaces and perceived health among people with trans experiences living in Sweden
Gender, Place & Culture, 2018
This introduction presents the points of departure for the themed section 'Ungendering Europe: Cr... more This introduction presents the points of departure for the themed section 'Ungendering Europe: Critical Engagements with Key Objects in Feminism' and introduces the eight articles included in the collection.
Health: An Interdisciplinary Journal for the Social Study of Health, Illness and Medicine, 2017
The few previous studies investigating regulation of gender in trans-specific healthcare are main... more The few previous studies investigating regulation of gender in trans-specific healthcare are mainly based on text material and interviews with care-providers or consist solely of theoretical analyses. There is a lack of studies analysing how the regulation of gender is expressed in the care-seeker’s own experiences, especially in a Nordic context. The aim of this study is to analyse narratives of individuals with trans experiences (sometimes called transgender people) to examine how gender performances can be regulated in trans-specific care in Sweden. The conceptual framework is inspired by trans studies, a Foucauldian analysis of power, queer phenomenology and the concept of cisnormativity. Fourteen interviews with people with trans experiences are analysed with constructivist grounded theory. The participants’ experiences indicate that gender is constructed as norm-conforming, binary and stable in trans-specific healthcare. This gendered position is resisted, negotiated and embra...
Culture Unbound: Journal of Current Cultural Research, 2017
Normative notions of gender and sexuality, and the way they are contested, (re)-constructed, inte... more Normative notions of gender and sexuality, and the way they are contested, (re)-constructed, interpreted and articulated in practice, have been studied within the Humanities and Social sciences at both macro and micro level. Studies of social movements, resistance, organising and community building have been essential in regard to the expansion of this diverse field of knowledge. When scholars have explored communities that emerge as norms of gender and sexuality cross national borders and impact upon transnational spaces, they have often focused on human subjects, organisations, political groups, etcetera (Yuval Davies 2011). However, if we are interested in understanding the complex and dynamic processes behind the formations of communities of belonging in a transnational and digitalised world, we also need new starting points and innovative methodological tools. This special issue of Culture Unbound sets out to explore the function of cultural products in the negotiation and consolidation of transnational communities of belonging, gathering articles that are theoretically and methodologically based on an understanding of cultural products as performative, as boundary objects, floating signifiers, and as actants. The articles follow cultural products like the rainbow flag, the veil, manga, and elongated labia across local and transnational borders and contexts, paying attention to what such a methodological move can tell us about communities of belonging. The authors featured in this special issue acknowledge that cultural products can be used as tools for marketisation and neoliberalism, for religious and secularist purposes, as well as for political strategies, struggles and policies. Through following cultural products transnationally, the authors move in unpredictable directions, uncovering new perspectives and narratives. Cultural products come into being in complex entanglements with other materialities and discourses such as technologies, artefacts, subjects, norms, desires
Somatechnics, 2013
This article makes an inquiry into how the orientation towards consensus shapes the somatechnics ... more This article makes an inquiry into how the orientation towards consensus shapes the somatechnics of intersex ( Ahmed 2006 , 2007 ; Sullivan 2009a , 2009b ). The article takes its departure in the concept of somatechnics and the theoretical framework of biomedicalisation ( Clarke et al 2003 ), two theoretical perspectives that transgress the standoff between discursive and material approaches and challenge the notion that there is such a thing as pre-discursive, purely material bodies that discourses act upon, pointing towards the fact that ‘modes and practices of corporeality are always-already, and without exception, in-relation and in-process’ ( Sullivan 2009a ). In order to explore the complexity of the somatechnics of intersex, encompassing networks of organisations, communication channels, alliances, narratives, clinical protocols, surgical interventions, feminist critique and activist resistance, this inquiry tries to situate somatechnical practices by means of exploring local...
Culture Unbound: Journal of Current Cultural Research, 2017
This article analyzes the frictions the rainbow flag creates between transnational, national and ... more This article analyzes the frictions the rainbow flag creates between transnational, national and translocal discourses and materialities. It focuses on the ambivalent role that the transnational ‘rainbow’ space plays for community building for LGBTQ activists in in Pakistan. The rainbow flag can function as a way to mobilize an imagined transnational community of belonging, enabling people to politicize their experiences of discrimination as a demand of recognition directed at the state. But it can also enable homonationalism and transnational middle class formations that exclude groups of people, for example illiterates and people perceived of as traditional, such as Khwaja Siras. The article is based on auto-ethnographic reflections on encounters with activists in Pakistan, and critically discusses the problem of feeling ‘too comfortable’, as white, Western, middle-class researchers, exploring ‘imperial narratives’ dominating the feminist and LGBTQ activist transnational imagined ...
Pluralistic Struggles in Gender, Sexuality and Coloniality
I den bästa av världar [In the best of worlds] Den bästa av dagar [The best of days] Vi slapp ju ... more I den bästa av världar [In the best of worlds] Den bästa av dagar [The best of days] Vi slapp ju nazister [We did not have Nazis] Så vad ska vi klaga? [So what should we complain about?] In the above poem, trans* activist and spoken word poet Yolanda Aurora Bohm Ramirez (2018) both names the ways the lives of specific groups of people in Sweden are threatened by the increasing neo-Nazi violence and illuminates the response of the majoritarian population to these threats: their demands of silence where protest and criticism is made nearly impossible.
Etableringen av begreppet normkritik utanför akademin speglar etableringen av nya sätt att betrak... more Etableringen av begreppet normkritik utanför akademin speglar etableringen av nya sätt att betrakta förgivet tagna antaganden och utgångspunkter. Istället för ett fokus på det till synes avvikande ifrågasätts vissa positioners förmenta neutralitet och omärkthet. Termen "förstahet" har uppstått för att fånga det som passerar som omärkt. I artikeln undersöks dels hur begreppet "normkritik" etablerades, av vilka och i vilka sammanhang. Och dels görs en idéhistorisk genealogisk undersökning av begreppets analytiska rötter. Slutligen relateras begreppsanvändningen till diskussioner om könsbinaritet och cispositioner.
Kapitel i bok. Förlaget har copy right. https://daidalos.se/component/virtuemart/samtider-br-perspektiv-p%C3%A5-2000-talets-id%C3%A9historia.htm?Itemid=181
The few previous studies investigating regulation of gender in trans-specific healthcare are main... more The few previous studies investigating regulation of gender in trans-specific healthcare are mainly based on text material and interviews with care-providers or consist solely of theoretical analyses. There is a lack of studies analysing how the regulation of gender is expressed in the care-seeker’s own experiences, especially in a Nordic context. The aim of this study is to analyse narratives of individuals with trans experiences (sometimes called transgender people) to examine how gender performances can be regulated in trans-specific care in Sweden. The conceptual framework is inspired by trans studies, a Foucauldian analysis of power, queer phenomenology and the concept of cisnormativity. Fourteen interviews with people with trans experiences are analysed with constructivist grounded theory. The participants’ experiences indicate that gender is constructed as norm-conforming, binary and stable in trans-specific healthcare. This gendered position is resisted, negotiated and embraced by the care-seekers. Norms and discourses both inside and outside trans-specific care contribute to the regulation and limit the room for action for care-users. We conclude that a trans-specific care that has a confirming approach to its care-users, instead of the current focus on conformity, has the potential to increase the self-determination of gender performance and increase the quality of care.