Jason Furguson (Harvard/UCLA)

The Great Refusal: The West, the Rest and the Geopolitics of Homosexuality

This talk critically examines the global struggle for and against gay rights. Many scholars note the dramatic liberalizing trends in policies on homosexuality throughout the world; others highlight a persistent resistance to gay rights. I take a different approach by first arguing that the global environment has grown increasingly articulated around homosexuality. This hyperarticulation is evidenced by the rise of both supportive and repressive rationalized state policies, some of which target homosexuality as practice, while others target cultural questions relevant to gay people’s lives. Global divisions in the legislative treatment of same-sex practices and desire are not random, however; they are structured by the social properties of nations, by their economic capital, geopolitical clout and connections, historical trajectories, and racial and colonial legacies. Uncovering this correspondence between laws and national characteristics helps to frame the dynamic, multi-scalar struggle between the pro-gay global field of human rights and anti-gay national fields. Drawing on the specific case of Senegal, I highlight the nature and scope of this struggle, as well as the unintended consequences of the global field’s interventionism on behalf of gay rights