The Problems of Protest and the Persistence of Domination: Social Movement Theory and Bourdieu’s Economy of Practice is a normative intervention into social movement theory and debates about social movement goals, strategies and tactics. The project asks: what normative implications derive from incorporating Pierre Bourdieu’s sociological framework into social movement research? My core arguments are that Bourdieu’s framework has the potential to sensitize activists and analysts to the tension between conformity and failure and that escaping radical/reformist debates requires working through this tension. The dissertation intervenes in social movement theory from within the critical theory tradition by refusing to separate empirical and normative questions. I develop my argument using two strategies. First, I undertake a close reading of Bourdieu’s most important works and the debates they have provoked. Second I apply the conceptual tools this close reading offers to reconsider the logic behind two key social movement theory concepts: collective identity and repertoires of contention. Following a general introduction and literature review, I undertake a close consideration of habitus and an argument for how attention to the suffering produced by symbolic power constitutes grounds for normative justice claims. I then consider how collective identity formation in lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer mobilization indicates the presence of symbolic violence, primarily in the form of epistemic violence. Next I argue that the nature of neoliberal symbolic power creates political antinomies for representation and affinity-based segments of the alterglobalization movement. Finally I argue that Bourdieu needs to be balanced by Nietzsche and that an orientation toward ‘overcoming’ offers a way out of the tension between conformity and failure. My findings point to the need for more sophisticated instruments for understanding the relationship between objective interests and subjective perception, impositions of, and challenges to, ‘logical consensus’, and strategies for counter-training and other mechanisms to support activists in resisting symbolic violence. / Thesis (Ph.D, Political Studies) -- Queen's University, 2013-01-29 14:14:16.699

This thesis discusses the ideological and political composition of the contemporary queer community in India. It is specifically concerned with the ways in which transgender/gender variant identities are represented within Indian queer scholarship and queer organizations in the subcontinent. At present, transgender/gender variant studies of South Asia are primarily confined to research on hijra and other trans feminine gender communities. While this research is important, this thesis seeks to expand the understanding of transgenderism/gender variance in South Asia by examining other transgender identities, including trans masculine identities, as well as analyzing Indian discourses on gender and sexuality more broadly. By examining Indian queer scholarship and the politics of contemporary queer organizations, I find that transgender/gender variant individuals face greater forms of marginalization within the contemporary queer movement in India because of the silence surrounding their gender identities. / text

Contemporary queer critiques are interested in the ways queer politics undergo certain shifts and warn us about their neoliberal/homonationalist turn. In Greece, research in this area is very limited although many events pertaining to LGBTQI+ issues are happening lately (having the first openly gay man as an opposition party leader, the same-sex marriage bill, and EuroPride) which remain unproblematized. From an intersectional and queer feminist perspective, this thesis’ aim is to explore the ways queer activists in Greece understand, address, and negotiate issues pertaining to identity, oppression, and resistance in the formation of queer politics in Greece. Via five semi structured interviews with queer activists and using thematic analysis, it was revealed that participants discussed how certain hierarchies among the queer identities arise, with the cisgender, masculine, white, beautiful, rich, gay man enjoying most privileges alongside the marginalization of trans experiences and the incorporation of Europeanness into queerness. The study examines how these identity intersections reveal new normativities within the queer movement and raise questions about homonationalism and neoliberal LGBTQI+ politics in Greece, creating new and different forms of oppression that require rethinking resistance. The need for an intersectional understanding of identity - oppression – resistance is emphasized, recognizing the interconnectedness of various oppressive systems such as capitalism, patriarchy, neoliberalism, and racism. The thesis suggests that identity-based mobilization should be viewed as an ongoing process rather than an end goal, advocating for a continuous re-evaluation of what it means to be queer in the Greek contex.

This thesis presents the basic principles of the functioning of the heteronormative order: in what way heterosexuality is constructed as the norm and in what way it is maintained as such. The thesis simultaneously examines the possibilities of disrupting the heteronormative order, creating queer spaces, and defining the term queer and queer politics in the framework of a queer subculture. The aim of the research carried out within the thesis is to contribute to the visibility of queer subculture, present ways in which the term queer is used in queer subculture and show to what degree the examined queer subcultural spaces are created as open spaces and to whom they are accessible. In the Czech Republic the term queer is used as a synonym for LGBT identities or as an umbrella term for LGBTI people and activities. Nevertheless, as follows from the analysis of semi-structured interviews, the term queer can have even other meanings. It can express criticism of heteronormativity, homonormativity, mainstream LGBT politics and culture, and the attempt to overcome the norms connected with gender and sexuality. In this regard, the term queer can refer not only to an identity and also to a political position. The interweaving of queer and feminist theory can be inspiring not only for the development of gender...

[pt] Esta dissertação pleiteia que os efeitos da agenda LGBT normativa favorecem alguns grupos sociais, mas reforçam a marginalização e a expropriação de pessoas e povos queer não-brancos, seja em contextos domésticos, ou na política internacional. Para explicar essa lógica, o trabalho apresenta uma montagem teórica experimental: a perspectiva foucaultiana sobre poder disciplinar e dispositivo de sexualidade (FOUCAULT, 2002; FOUCAULT, 1998) acoplada a uma crítica queer of color (FERGUSON, 2004), que atenta para o disciplinar das formações racializadas não-heteronormativas que surgiram para suprir o mercado de trabalho capitalista nos centros urbanos onde o a burguesia primeiro ascendeu. Com esse primeiro movimento, será mostrada a imbricação entre capital, poder disciplinar e sexualidade, para indicar que tal poder disciplinar atua em favor de uma hegemonia político-sexual branca e burguesa. Posteriormente, para indicar as tendências do período neoliberal recente, o esforço consistirá em refletir sobre as ausências estratégicas do Estado neoliberal e as formas pelas quais a heteronormatividade é reforçada em comunidades racionalizadas, ao passo que a homonormatividade se torna mais acessível a grupos que correspondem a recortes de classe e raça identificados com a branquitude e o alto poder de consumo. Tal montagem teórica permitirá entender, também, como a normatividade sexual, presente na política LGBT e embutida nas noções de atraso e desenvolvimento, reforça as desigualdades internacionais. Por fim, o trabalho indicará como as perspectivas queer contém pontos-chave que permitem a transformação do tecido político, econômico e social nacional, e a desestabilização das hierarquias internacionais de poder. / [en] This Masters thesis claims that the effects of the normative LGBT agenda favor some social groups but reinforce the marginalization and expropriation of nonwhite queer persons and peoples, whether in domestic contexts or in international politics. Following this logic, the work has an experimental set-up: a Foucautian perspective on disciplinary power and the sexuality device (FOUCAULT, 2002; FOUCAULT, 1998) coupled with a queer of color critique (FERGUSON, 2004), which draws attention to the disciplining of the non-heteronormative racial formations that emerged to supply the capitalist labor market in the urban centers where the bourgeoisie first rose. With this first movement, this work will attemp to demonstrate the imbrication between capital, disciplinary power and sexuality, indicating that such disciplinary power acts in favor of white and bourgeois political hegemony. Later on, to indicate the trends of the recent neoliberal period, the argument points to the strategic absencers of the neoliberal State and the ways in which heteronormativity is reinforced in racialized communities, while homonormativity is accessible to groups that correspond to class and racial positions identified with whiteness and high consumption patterns. Such a theoretical set-up willl also allow readers to understand how the sexual normativity present in LGBT politics, and embedded in the notions of backwardness and development, reinforces international inequalities. Finally, the paper will indicate how queer perspectives contain key points that could enable the transfomation of the political, economic and social fabric locally, as well as the destabilization of international hierarchies of power.