Dissertation Defense | ‘Queer Sovereignties: Cultural Practices of Sexual Citizenship in the Dutch Caribbean’ – Julian Isenia

Dissertation Defense | ‘Queer Sovereignties: Cultural Practices of Sexual Citizenship in the Dutch Caribbean’
PhD-candidate: Julian Isenia
Date: June 23rd, 2022, 11:00
Location: University of Amsterdam, Aula
Supervisors: Rivke Jaffe, Sruti Bala and Rose Mary Allen
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This dissertation examines the reimagination of sexual citizenship by same-sex desiring and trans* subjects in the Dutch Caribbean through cultural practices, focusing primarily on Curaçao. Analysing archival documents, performances, novels, photographs, letters to the editors of newspapers, and erotic lexicons, I propose approaching these subjects’ cultural practices through the theoretical lens of what I call ‘queer sovereignties’. The concept of queer sovereignties refers to the positions staked out by same-sex desiring and trans* subjects as they reimagine how to achieve collective autonomy within the postcolonial context of the non-independent Caribbean, and emphasises how these positions both disrupt and conform to hegemonic notions of sexuality, gender, and nation.