Queerness is not yet here. Queerness is an ideality… We may never touch queerness, but we can feel it as the warm illumination of a horizon imbued with potentiality (Muñoz, 2009: 1).
If queerness is a horizon, as the late José Esteban Muñoz suggested, then what is the next step for political ecology? We are seeking co-travelers to explore the question – What are Queer Political Ecologies?
At the doorstep of the Anthropocene (Capitalocene, Chthulucene, etc.-cene), in an era of climate catastrophe and confusion, and in a time and place where being ‘other’ is simultaneously – and increasingly – necessary and precarious, what does queer theory/studies or the voices of queer folks offer in the way of alternative thought, theory, strategy and space? This CFP – call for participants – is meant to encourage dialogue around these issues and to build a community of like-minded folks through which to share our ideas, and discuss how queer political ecology is broadly defined throughout our work.
As we think through queer political ecologies in our work, we are hoping to use DOPE as an opportunity to share and think together. We are seeking abstracts that outline how you are working with/thinking through queer political ecology in your research. Once the submission deadline of November 18th has passed, we will contact selected panelists and ask you to submit one or two leading questions that guide your work as well as four or five annotated references that inspire you. The idea is to compile a list of questions and references to make a one-sheet resource handout for those who attend the session as panelists and participants. We will distribute the handout to panelists in advance of the conference, and use the collection of questions and references as a conceptual springboard to begin collectively building our understanding of queer political ecologies.
We are interested in any and all thought at the intersections of queer-ness and political ecology. We are seeking a diverse cast of folks and ideas. Below you will find some keywords/questions/concepts, but these are only meant to spark not limit possible submissions:
- The Queer Commons
- Hope and Queer Horizons
- Was the Queer Ever Human? (Luciano and Chen, 2015)
- Queer Time & Space
- No Future / Queer Future
- Speculative Ecologies
- Queer Geopolitics
- Queering Climate Change
- TRANS-cendentalism
- Queer Cartographies
- What if Malthus was queer?
- Queer Spirituality
- Meaningful Non-Human Engagement (Kinship)
- QTPOC Ecologies
- Queer Epistemologies and Ontologies
- Queer Activism
- Quantifying/Qualifying the Queer
- The Queero-cene
- Queering Marx/Political Economy
- Critical Theory and Queer Discourse
- Gentrification and Queer Urban Frontiers
- Space of Queer In/visibility
If you are interested in participating, please contact Dylan Harris (dyharris@clarku.edu) or Rachael Baker (baker87@yorku.ca) by November 18th, 2016 with a 200-300 word abstract. Participants will be notified by November 23rd, 2016 and will then need to register and submit their abstracts to DOPE 2017 by December 1st, 2016.
References:
Luciano, D. and M. Chen. 2015. Has the Queer Ever Been Human? GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies. 21: 2-3, pp. 183-207.
Muñoz, J. E. 2009. Cruising Utopia: The Then and There of Queer Futurity. New York, NY: New York University Press.
Tags: CFPs 2017