TY - JOUR
T1 - Stepping back from queer theory
T2 - Language, fieldwork and the everyday in sexuality studies in France
AU - Provencher, Denis M.
N1 - Funding Information:
I have received generous support for this research project from the European Commission, Research Executive Agency (REA), grant number 302145. I am also grateful to the University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC) for a sabbatical leave, and to my hosting institution, Nottingham Trent University, in 2012–13. I would especially like to thank Bill Leap, Didier Eribon, Enda McCaffrey, Andrew Sobanet, Nicoleta Bazgan, Ruth Cruickshank and Steve Ungar for their comments on a previous draft of this essay.
Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2014.
PY - 2014/8/27
Y1 - 2014/8/27
N2 - In a 2012 special issue of French Cultural Studies, Didier Eribon urges French studies scholars to step back from critical theory, and in particular queer theory as it has emerged in cultural and literary studies. He is also particularly critical of a version of queer theory conjugated with psychoanalysis. For Eribon, cultural studies scholars and those working in sexuality studies should move away from the 'master narrative' of the family and (re)turn to the cultural, the social, the field and empirical evidence. Over the last 15 years, I have conducted fieldwork and ethnographic interviews with self-identified same-sex desiring men in France. Their life stories can be read at times through the Anglo-American lens of a gay-identified, Western coming-out narrative with a telos of 'progress' that involves moving from the closet to being 'out'. At the same time, however, a queer linguistic approach can help us to read against the grain of several norms and hence provide us with a broader understanding of their lived experiences. In this essay, I present empirical language data from my interview with 'Tahar' one of my self-identified same-sex desiring Maghrebi and Maghrebi-French interlocutors to illustrate how his speech acts are situated at the crossroads of multiple discourses, temporalities, identities and traditions. As we shall see, Tahar's story involves being 'beur', 'being homosexual' and 'being fat'. This subject speaks back against the empire, against heteronormativity, and against corporeal norms. While a postcolonial critique based on a 'postcolonial identity' (looking at ethnicity or religion, for example) or a linguistic analysis based on 'gay identity' could be helpful here, my point is that a queer linguistic analysis - one that takes a position counter to the normative broadly defined by considering simultaneously multiple subaltern subject positions - could provide a better approach for those of us working in an interdisciplinary French cultural studies context.
AB - In a 2012 special issue of French Cultural Studies, Didier Eribon urges French studies scholars to step back from critical theory, and in particular queer theory as it has emerged in cultural and literary studies. He is also particularly critical of a version of queer theory conjugated with psychoanalysis. For Eribon, cultural studies scholars and those working in sexuality studies should move away from the 'master narrative' of the family and (re)turn to the cultural, the social, the field and empirical evidence. Over the last 15 years, I have conducted fieldwork and ethnographic interviews with self-identified same-sex desiring men in France. Their life stories can be read at times through the Anglo-American lens of a gay-identified, Western coming-out narrative with a telos of 'progress' that involves moving from the closet to being 'out'. At the same time, however, a queer linguistic approach can help us to read against the grain of several norms and hence provide us with a broader understanding of their lived experiences. In this essay, I present empirical language data from my interview with 'Tahar' one of my self-identified same-sex desiring Maghrebi and Maghrebi-French interlocutors to illustrate how his speech acts are situated at the crossroads of multiple discourses, temporalities, identities and traditions. As we shall see, Tahar's story involves being 'beur', 'being homosexual' and 'being fat'. This subject speaks back against the empire, against heteronormativity, and against corporeal norms. While a postcolonial critique based on a 'postcolonial identity' (looking at ethnicity or religion, for example) or a linguistic analysis based on 'gay identity' could be helpful here, my point is that a queer linguistic analysis - one that takes a position counter to the normative broadly defined by considering simultaneously multiple subaltern subject positions - could provide a better approach for those of us working in an interdisciplinary French cultural studies context.
KW - Maghrebi French
KW - anthropology
KW - diaspora
KW - disidentification
KW - ethnography
KW - language
KW - queer linguistics
KW - queer theory
KW - sexuality
KW - stereotypes
KW - temporalities
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U2 - 10.1177/0957155814532201
DO - 10.1177/0957155814532201
M3 - Review article
AN - SCOPUS:84908606950
SN - 0957-1558
VL - 25
SP - 408
EP - 417
JO - French Cultural Studies
JF - French Cultural Studies
ER -