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Conferences and Symposia Organized by themal ellawala

Research paper thumbnail of "Journeys <---> Queer Elsewheres: A Symposium on South Asian Imaginaries," 4th Queer Symposium at the Annual Conference on South Asia, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Thursday, Oct. 17

48th Annual Conference on South Asia, UW-Madison, 2019

Journeys <---> Queer Elsewheres: A Symposium on South Asian Imaginaries at the 48th Annual Confer... more Journeys <---> Queer Elsewheres: A Symposium on South Asian Imaginaries at the 48th Annual Conference On South Asia (2019) draws attention to the journeys of queer, trans, hijra, khwaja sira, thirunangai, and gender nonconforming subjects and scholars to and from less-frequented settings in and around South Asia–with attention to locations that are marginalized and rendered as "elsewhere" in queer scholarship.

Papers by themal ellawala

Research paper thumbnail of Indeterminacies: Queer Tales of Love and Suffering

Feminist Review

This is a meditation on love and suffering, pleasure and pain. Despite common sense, public disco... more This is a meditation on love and suffering, pleasure and pain. Despite common sense, public discourse and scholarship narrating these states as diametrically opposed, the lived experience of queer romantic love cannot be disarticulated from the social realities of loss and pain. Suturing love and suffering is the metaphysic of indeterminacy, with the unexpected and uncertain marking romantic encounters and ambitions with precarity and impermanence. Drawing from vignettes gained through an ethnography on queer erotics in Sri Lanka in 2016, I explore how queer love manifests and perishes in the most inexplicable fashion, against the backdrop of structural violence and the vagaries of intersubjective relationalities. A sensitivity to indeterminacy enables an excavation of the elsewheres that inhere to and are conjured by queer romantic love, from the entanglements that live outside of the binaries of heterosexual-homosexual to the utopic futural imaginaries that are made possible at th...

Research paper thumbnail of Living in Color: What we know vs. what remains to be known and done

Research paper thumbnail of The Motionless Half-Sun Over the Postcolonial Horizon: Adichie, Bhabha, and Inaction

Undergraduate Research Journal, 2017

Action is a metaphysical reality of our daily existence, one so commonplace and privileged that i... more Action is a metaphysical reality of our daily existence, one so commonplace and privileged that it has transcended its dialectical relationship with inaction to a position of primacy. The latter has failed to capture the imagination of philosophers and critical theorists, leaving the subversive potential of this negative space unexplored. This essay seeks to interrogate the space of inaction, and restore unity within this duality. This exploration is situated in a postcolonial context, as a conversation between Chimamanda Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun and Homi Bhabha, to examine how inaction offers a site from which we can begin to challenge the violence of action and the unitary discourse of nationhood. What In his introduction to a collection of essays titled Nation and Narration, postcolonial theorist Homi Bhabha poses at the end a series of questions that seem fundamental to the field of postcolonial studies and many other fields of critical inquiry, questions that have plagued...

Research paper thumbnail of Sexuality and sexual identity across the first year of parenthood among male-partnered plurisexual women

Psychology of Sexual Orientation and Gender Diversity, 2019

Women who (a) hold plurisexual identities (e.g., bisexual, pansexual) and (b) are male-partnered ... more Women who (a) hold plurisexual identities (e.g., bisexual, pansexual) and (b) are male-partnered are understudied. Of interest is how these women construct their sexual identities across the transition to parenthood-a period associated with intensified heteronormative expectations, and changes in women's roles and identities. This longitudinal study of 28 plurisexual, male-partnered women examined women's sexual identity construction across the first year of parenthood, using four waves of data. Most women were White, bisexual-identified, and first-time parents. The majority of women described decreases in the salience or centrality of their sexuality more generally. Almost all women continued to hold plurisexual identities across the first year of parenthood, although many described these as private identities amid public assumptions of heterosexuality. Some, though, sought to maintain a connection to their plurisexual identities through sexual identity disclosure, same-gender fantasies, and involvement in consensual nonmonogamy. Although only one woman articulated a shift in sexual identity label (from bicurious to heterosexual), others increasingly distanced themselves from their same-gender behaviors and desires. Our findings illustrate how women engage in an active process of sexual identity construction amid heteronormative pressures, and how they navigate tensions among their partnership and parenthood statuses and their private identities and past behaviors. Public Significance Statement This longitudinal study of 28 plurisexual (e.g., bisexual, queer), male-partnered women examined women's sexual identity construction across the first year of parenthood, using four waves of data. Most women described decreases in the salience of their sexuality more generally, and almost all women continued to identify as bisexual or queer during the first year of parenthood, although many described these as private identities, given public assumptions of heterosexuality.

Research paper thumbnail of Male-Partnered Bisexual Women's Perceptions of Disclosing Sexual Orientation to Family Across the Transition to Parenthood: Intensifying Heteronormativity or Queering Family?

Journal of marital and family therapy, Jan 24, 2017

Drawing from queer and communication privacy management frameworks, this study examines the narra... more Drawing from queer and communication privacy management frameworks, this study examines the narratives of 22 bisexual, male-partnered women who were interviewed during the perinatal period and one year postnatally about their disclosures of sexual identity to family of origin. Most women rarely discussed their sexual identity with family; participants who had disclosed described such disclosures as provoking discomfort. Some women stated that their parental status seemed to invalidate the need to talk about their sexual history or identity with family, due its declining salience and increased concerns about judgment. This study reveals how partnership and parenthood statuses contribute to the intensification of heteronormative pressures in relation to family. Therapists should attend to the role of heteronormative values regarding partnering, family-building, and parenting.

Research paper thumbnail of Legitimating Violences: The ‘Gay Rights’ NGO and the Disciplining of the Sri Lankan Queer Figure

Journal of South Asian Development, 2019

Sri Lanka has debated the decriminalization of homosexuality for several decades, but never with ... more Sri Lanka has debated the decriminalization of homosexuality for several decades, but never with more vigour than in 2017, when the government considered this legislative change. This project was eventually abandoned, inspiring fierce opposition by local 'LGBT' non-governmental organizations (NGOs), resulting in an escalation of advocacy work in the country. This article interrogates the capacity 'LGBT' NGOs possess to (re)produce forms of structural violence and reify new idioms of normativity as they seek to emancipate the queer figure. The site of conflict between the state and civil society is rife with the problematics of nation and capital, for the NGO reifies ethno-nationalism and capitalist social cleavages. Meanwhile, reliance on material support from the Global North renders these organizations enmeshed in transnational neoliberal politics. In negotiating the narcissistic desires of state and global hegemonies, and the crisis of legitimacy that emerges through these encounters, NGOs demarcate a specifically interpellated figure as the normative 'LGBT' citizen, thereby collapsing a range of queer desires to flat, restrictive ontologies that exclude many. Using interviews, informal conversations and observations gleaned through an ethnography on genders and sexualities in Sri Lanka, this article explores the institutional politics of queer liberation in Sri Lanka, enmeshed as they are in the myriad complexities of postcolonial neoliberal modernity.

Research paper thumbnail of Where Have All the Queers Gone? Missing Data on the Health of LGB Populations

Research paper thumbnail of Pulling the Trigger: Dehumanization of African Americans and Police Violence

Police shootings and killing of African American targets has reached epidemic proportions and has... more Police shootings and killing of African American targets has reached epidemic proportions and has captured the attention of the entire country. Research in social psychology has studied many dimensions of this layered issue, and has generated disparate findings regarding the role of racial bias in police violence. The process of implicit dehumanization of African Americans, especially youth, has been proposed as particularly salient in making shoot/don’t shoot decisions. This paper suggests that the paradigm of dehumanization could complete the understanding of racialized police violence and reconcile contradictory research findings, while highlighting areas for future research.

Research paper thumbnail of Uncertain Grammars, Ambiguous Desires

Research paper thumbnail of Mismatched Lovers: Exploring the Compatibility Between LGBTQ+ Identity Theories and Gender and Sexual Plurality in Sri Lanka

Publications by themal ellawala

Research paper thumbnail of "Queer Elsewheres <----> South Asian Imaginaries," Guest-Edited Themed Issue

Feminist Review 133, 2023

This themed issue adopts a speculative approach to crafting ‘queer elsewheres’ as it seeks to hig... more This themed issue adopts a speculative approach to crafting ‘queer elsewheres’ as it seeks to highlight the imaginative and aesthetic formations of queerness across South Asia and the Global South that are both alienated from and yet familiar to the Western academy. Centering performative and narrative modes of reflexive inscription in the social, literary, visual and performing arts, we explore the sensorial, enfleshed and affective dimensions, ethical issues and methodological limits of such travels.

Research paper thumbnail of "Journeys <---> Queer Elsewheres: A Symposium on South Asian Imaginaries," 4th Queer Symposium at the Annual Conference on South Asia, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Thursday, Oct. 17

48th Annual Conference on South Asia, UW-Madison, 2019

Journeys <---> Queer Elsewheres: A Symposium on South Asian Imaginaries at the 48th Annual Confer... more Journeys <---> Queer Elsewheres: A Symposium on South Asian Imaginaries at the 48th Annual Conference On South Asia (2019) draws attention to the journeys of queer, trans, hijra, khwaja sira, thirunangai, and gender nonconforming subjects and scholars to and from less-frequented settings in and around South Asia–with attention to locations that are marginalized and rendered as "elsewhere" in queer scholarship.

Research paper thumbnail of Indeterminacies: Queer Tales of Love and Suffering

Feminist Review

This is a meditation on love and suffering, pleasure and pain. Despite common sense, public disco... more This is a meditation on love and suffering, pleasure and pain. Despite common sense, public discourse and scholarship narrating these states as diametrically opposed, the lived experience of queer romantic love cannot be disarticulated from the social realities of loss and pain. Suturing love and suffering is the metaphysic of indeterminacy, with the unexpected and uncertain marking romantic encounters and ambitions with precarity and impermanence. Drawing from vignettes gained through an ethnography on queer erotics in Sri Lanka in 2016, I explore how queer love manifests and perishes in the most inexplicable fashion, against the backdrop of structural violence and the vagaries of intersubjective relationalities. A sensitivity to indeterminacy enables an excavation of the elsewheres that inhere to and are conjured by queer romantic love, from the entanglements that live outside of the binaries of heterosexual-homosexual to the utopic futural imaginaries that are made possible at th...

Research paper thumbnail of Living in Color: What we know vs. what remains to be known and done

Research paper thumbnail of The Motionless Half-Sun Over the Postcolonial Horizon: Adichie, Bhabha, and Inaction

Undergraduate Research Journal, 2017

Action is a metaphysical reality of our daily existence, one so commonplace and privileged that i... more Action is a metaphysical reality of our daily existence, one so commonplace and privileged that it has transcended its dialectical relationship with inaction to a position of primacy. The latter has failed to capture the imagination of philosophers and critical theorists, leaving the subversive potential of this negative space unexplored. This essay seeks to interrogate the space of inaction, and restore unity within this duality. This exploration is situated in a postcolonial context, as a conversation between Chimamanda Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun and Homi Bhabha, to examine how inaction offers a site from which we can begin to challenge the violence of action and the unitary discourse of nationhood. What In his introduction to a collection of essays titled Nation and Narration, postcolonial theorist Homi Bhabha poses at the end a series of questions that seem fundamental to the field of postcolonial studies and many other fields of critical inquiry, questions that have plagued...

Research paper thumbnail of Sexuality and sexual identity across the first year of parenthood among male-partnered plurisexual women

Psychology of Sexual Orientation and Gender Diversity, 2019

Women who (a) hold plurisexual identities (e.g., bisexual, pansexual) and (b) are male-partnered ... more Women who (a) hold plurisexual identities (e.g., bisexual, pansexual) and (b) are male-partnered are understudied. Of interest is how these women construct their sexual identities across the transition to parenthood-a period associated with intensified heteronormative expectations, and changes in women's roles and identities. This longitudinal study of 28 plurisexual, male-partnered women examined women's sexual identity construction across the first year of parenthood, using four waves of data. Most women were White, bisexual-identified, and first-time parents. The majority of women described decreases in the salience or centrality of their sexuality more generally. Almost all women continued to hold plurisexual identities across the first year of parenthood, although many described these as private identities amid public assumptions of heterosexuality. Some, though, sought to maintain a connection to their plurisexual identities through sexual identity disclosure, same-gender fantasies, and involvement in consensual nonmonogamy. Although only one woman articulated a shift in sexual identity label (from bicurious to heterosexual), others increasingly distanced themselves from their same-gender behaviors and desires. Our findings illustrate how women engage in an active process of sexual identity construction amid heteronormative pressures, and how they navigate tensions among their partnership and parenthood statuses and their private identities and past behaviors. Public Significance Statement This longitudinal study of 28 plurisexual (e.g., bisexual, queer), male-partnered women examined women's sexual identity construction across the first year of parenthood, using four waves of data. Most women described decreases in the salience of their sexuality more generally, and almost all women continued to identify as bisexual or queer during the first year of parenthood, although many described these as private identities, given public assumptions of heterosexuality.

Research paper thumbnail of Male-Partnered Bisexual Women's Perceptions of Disclosing Sexual Orientation to Family Across the Transition to Parenthood: Intensifying Heteronormativity or Queering Family?

Journal of marital and family therapy, Jan 24, 2017

Drawing from queer and communication privacy management frameworks, this study examines the narra... more Drawing from queer and communication privacy management frameworks, this study examines the narratives of 22 bisexual, male-partnered women who were interviewed during the perinatal period and one year postnatally about their disclosures of sexual identity to family of origin. Most women rarely discussed their sexual identity with family; participants who had disclosed described such disclosures as provoking discomfort. Some women stated that their parental status seemed to invalidate the need to talk about their sexual history or identity with family, due its declining salience and increased concerns about judgment. This study reveals how partnership and parenthood statuses contribute to the intensification of heteronormative pressures in relation to family. Therapists should attend to the role of heteronormative values regarding partnering, family-building, and parenting.

Research paper thumbnail of Legitimating Violences: The ‘Gay Rights’ NGO and the Disciplining of the Sri Lankan Queer Figure

Journal of South Asian Development, 2019

Sri Lanka has debated the decriminalization of homosexuality for several decades, but never with ... more Sri Lanka has debated the decriminalization of homosexuality for several decades, but never with more vigour than in 2017, when the government considered this legislative change. This project was eventually abandoned, inspiring fierce opposition by local 'LGBT' non-governmental organizations (NGOs), resulting in an escalation of advocacy work in the country. This article interrogates the capacity 'LGBT' NGOs possess to (re)produce forms of structural violence and reify new idioms of normativity as they seek to emancipate the queer figure. The site of conflict between the state and civil society is rife with the problematics of nation and capital, for the NGO reifies ethno-nationalism and capitalist social cleavages. Meanwhile, reliance on material support from the Global North renders these organizations enmeshed in transnational neoliberal politics. In negotiating the narcissistic desires of state and global hegemonies, and the crisis of legitimacy that emerges through these encounters, NGOs demarcate a specifically interpellated figure as the normative 'LGBT' citizen, thereby collapsing a range of queer desires to flat, restrictive ontologies that exclude many. Using interviews, informal conversations and observations gleaned through an ethnography on genders and sexualities in Sri Lanka, this article explores the institutional politics of queer liberation in Sri Lanka, enmeshed as they are in the myriad complexities of postcolonial neoliberal modernity.

Research paper thumbnail of Where Have All the Queers Gone? Missing Data on the Health of LGB Populations

Research paper thumbnail of Pulling the Trigger: Dehumanization of African Americans and Police Violence

Police shootings and killing of African American targets has reached epidemic proportions and has... more Police shootings and killing of African American targets has reached epidemic proportions and has captured the attention of the entire country. Research in social psychology has studied many dimensions of this layered issue, and has generated disparate findings regarding the role of racial bias in police violence. The process of implicit dehumanization of African Americans, especially youth, has been proposed as particularly salient in making shoot/don’t shoot decisions. This paper suggests that the paradigm of dehumanization could complete the understanding of racialized police violence and reconcile contradictory research findings, while highlighting areas for future research.

Research paper thumbnail of Uncertain Grammars, Ambiguous Desires

Research paper thumbnail of Mismatched Lovers: Exploring the Compatibility Between LGBTQ+ Identity Theories and Gender and Sexual Plurality in Sri Lanka

Research paper thumbnail of "Queer Elsewheres <----> South Asian Imaginaries," Guest-Edited Themed Issue

Feminist Review 133, 2023

This themed issue adopts a speculative approach to crafting ‘queer elsewheres’ as it seeks to hig... more This themed issue adopts a speculative approach to crafting ‘queer elsewheres’ as it seeks to highlight the imaginative and aesthetic formations of queerness across South Asia and the Global South that are both alienated from and yet familiar to the Western academy. Centering performative and narrative modes of reflexive inscription in the social, literary, visual and performing arts, we explore the sensorial, enfleshed and affective dimensions, ethical issues and methodological limits of such travels.