A Post-Progressive Nation: Homophobia, Islam, and the New Social Question in the Netherlands (original) (raw)
Related papers
Sexual Politics, Orientalism and Multicultural Citizenship in the Netherlands
Sociology, 2010
Sexuality features prominently in European debates on multiculturalism and in Orientalist discourses on Islam. This article argues that representations of gay emancipation are mobilized to shape narratives in which Muslims are framed as non-modern subjects, a development that can best be understood in relation to the ‘culturalization of citizenship’ and the rise of Islamophobia in Europe. We focus on the Netherlands where the entanglement of gay rights discourses with anti-Muslim politics and representations is especially salient. The thorough-going secularization of Dutch society, transformations in the realms of sex and morality since the ‘long 1960s’ and the ‘normalization’ of gay identities since the 1980s have made sexuality a malleable discourse in the framing of ‘modernity’ against ‘tradition’. This development is highly problematic, but also offers possibilities for new alliances and solidarities in lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered and questioning (LGBTQ) politics and s...
Sexuality features prominently in European debates on multiculturalism and in Orientalist discourses on Islam. This article argues that representations of gay emancipation are mobilized to shape narratives in which Muslims are framed as non-modern subjects, a development that can best be understood in relation to the ‘culturalization of citizenship’ and the rise of Islamophobia in Europe. We focus on the Netherlands where the entanglement of gay rights discourses with anti-Muslim politics and representations is especially salient. The thorough-going secularization of Dutch society, transformations in the realms of sex and morality since the ‘long 1960s’ and the ‘normalization’ of gay identities since the 1980s have made sexuality a malleable discourse in the framing of ‘modernity’ against ‘tradition’. This development is highly problematic, but also offers possibilities for new alliances and solidarities in lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered and questioning (LGBTQ) politics and sexual and cultural citizenship.
A tumultuous conference in Amsterdam, early 2011, on Sexual Nationalisms: Gender, Sexuality and the Politics of Belonging in the New Europe, bore witness to the academic and political thorniness of the issues at stake. The conference, organized by the Amsterdam Research Center for Gender and Sexuality (ARC-GS) at the University of Amsterdam and the Institut de Recherche Interdisciplinaire sur les enjeux Sociaux (IRIS) at EHESS in Paris, brought together more than 80 scholars and hundreds of participants to discuss the entanglements and convergences of liberal and progressive feminist and gay rights politics with anti-immigration policies in Europe. The Dutch case, in our view, provides quintessential examples of the sexualization of European anxieties about cultural and religious diversity. In no other country have discourses of gay rights and sexual freedom played such a prominent role.
European Sexual Nationalisms: The Culturalization of
This article examines the remarkable shift in the social location of gay politics and representations as they relate to the rise of anti-multiculturalism in Europe. Gay issues have moved from the margins to the centre of cultural imagination, necessitating a rethink
The sexopolitical landscape of the Netherlands has changed considerably over the last few years. From a country with a liberal reputation, it has become illiberal in many respects. This is a development I will discuss in this chapter by focusing on attitudes towards homo/sexual issues. It must, however, be made clear that this development is strongly connected with anxieties about national identity, and in particular about immigration. There is a great fear that 'new Dutch', and especially Muslim citizens, reject some Dutch norms, including the principle of equality for men and women and for hetero and homo citizens. At the same time,
Building Barriers and Bridges, 2014
In recent decades, Europe has faced the rise of nationalist populist movements objecting to increased immigration, cultural pluralisation, and interculturalism in European societies. Public discussion on interculturalism have often focused on the encounters of-and the wrangles with-migrants and local people and their diverse values. The members of anti-immigrant movements commonly object to cultural pluralism and intercultural practices and foster 'traditional', 'Western', and 'national' values. The discourse influenced by conservative ideologies also often embraces traces of xenophobia, homophobia, and misogyny. In this paper, we ask how and why interculturalism is opposed in populist discourses. Focusing on identity formations we ask how the groups of 'us' and 'others' are produced, and analyse the rhetorical means used in demonizing others. Intersectionality as the critical recognition of hierarchically organized and constantly negotiated identity categories, such as gender, ethnicity, sexuality, social class, and religion, is our key methodological concept in analysing the complexity of the meaning-making processes in populist discourses. As our case, we analyse an article on Muslim homosexuals in Amsterdam, published in the widely read Finnish newspaper Helsingin Sanomat (3 March 2013), and the vivid discussion that followed in the online discussion forum of the newspaper. The paper demonstrates that notions of gender and sexuality are topics which can be flexibly utilized in populist discourses. On the one hand, the populist discourses are often profoundly heteronormative, fostering the idea of nuclear family, traditional gender roles, and hierarchical gender binarity. On the other hand, they may explicitly support gender equality and gay rights when the values promoted in the discourse are facing 'a bigger threat': immigration and Islam. In this case, the populist discourse can even aim to rhetorically normalize homosexuality and gender equality as an indication of developed Western rights and civilized values.
The nativist triangle: sexuality, race, and religion in the Netherlands
This chapter examines the social formation of Dutch nativism by focusing on two issues that have been central in recent Dutch public discourse: the debate surrounding the blackface servant of Saint Nicholas, Zwarte Piet, and the ascendance of ‘sexual nationalism’ in the country. Both exemplify the dominant nativist discourse in which Dutch culture is framed as under attack and in need of protection from the nefarious consequences of postcolonial and labor migration; both reveal the central roles played by ‘race’ and sexuality in Dutch nativist discourse. Focusing on how race and sexuality intersect within nativist discourse further reveals the importance of the third leg in the nativist triangle: religion (read: Islam). We argue in this chapter that Dutch nativist discourse is best understood through a conceptual framework with three central nodes: sexuality, race, and religion. We begin by examining the recent explosion of ‘race talk’ in the Netherlands – a surprising phenomenon in a country that has long seen itself as post-racial and beyond any form of racism. (Forthcoming, 2015).
The Dutch Homo-Emancipation Policy and its Silencing Effects on Queer Muslims
Feminist Legal Studies, 2011
The recent Dutch homo-emancipation policy has identified religious communities, particularly within migrant populations, as a core target group in which to make homosexuality more 'speakable'. In this article we examine the paradoxical silencing tendencies of this 'speaking out' policy on queer Muslim organisations in the Netherlands. We undertake this analysis as the Dutch government is perhaps unique in developing an explicit 'homo-emancipation' policy and is often looked to as the model for sexuality politics and legal redress in relation to inequalities on the basis of sexual orientation. We highlight how the 'speakability' imperative in the Dutch homo-emancipation policy reproduces a paradigmatic, 'homonormative' model of an 'out' and 'visible' queer sexuality that has also come to be embedded in an anti-immigrant and specifically anti-Muslim discourse in the Netherlands. Drawing on the concept of habitus, particularly in the work of Gloria Wekker, we suggest that rather than relying on a 'speakability' policy model, queer Muslim sexualities need to be understood in a more nuanced and intersecting way that attends to their lived realities.
LGBTs In, Muslims Out: Homonationalist Discourses and Counterdiscourses in the Flemish Press
2020
This article aims to contribute to the growing body of knowledge on homonationalism by exploring a European region that has not been discussed so far, Flanders (Belgium), focusing on media discourses. Homonationalism refers to the way LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender) rights are increasingly incorporated in (mostly Western) conceptions of nationhood, at the expense of ethnic and religious “Others” (most prominently Muslims) who are considered inimical to the LGBT-friendly nation. Using discourse analysis to analyze three months of Flemish newspaper reporting on homosexuality in relation to Muslims, this article inquires into which nations LGBT rights are incorporated and by whom, and how homonationalist discourses relate to broader discourses on Muslims and homosexuality. The analysis finds examples of explicit homonationalist discourse, originating with nationalist politicians, but also implicit homonationalist discourse that only refers to Muslims, as well as counterd...