What’s Queer About Queer Studies Now?- Kim The

In What’s Queer About Queer Studies Now?, Eng, Halberstam, and Muñoz argue for expanding queer studies to more adequately address crises happening across the world, political economy, and war and terrorism and how these play out in gender, sexuality, race, and class hierarchies. Specifically, they explore how queer studies needs to be intersectional and can contribute to issues typically addressed through critical race studies of immigration, globalization, neoliberalism, terrorism, and sovereignty? The authors described some main methodologies: the subjectless critique and humility. I argue how queer of color methodologies can also work together with disability studies to create more nuanced intersectional and interdisciplinary scholar-activist work.

According to these authors, queer of color methodologies argue for challenging the structures that require us to concretely name and identify ourselves in rigid identity categories. They offer the subjectless critique as a methodology that takes the gaze away from the subject (eg. individuals or identity groups) and instead turns the lens toward dominant structures of power. Epistemological humility is another methodology in queer of color methodologies that is somewhat related to the subjectless critique. It emphasizes the decentering and difference and “demands a world in which we must sometimes relinquish not only our epistemological but also our political certitude.”

Disability studies and queer of color methodologies seem like they would complement each other well. The authors of What’s Queer About Queer Studies Now? The authors made frequent mention to ideas challenging normality as well as the process of normalization. They way these terms are used in this reading are used somewhat differently than in disability studies, but it would be interesting to compare the ways that normal an normalization are conceptualize. The reading  seems to conceptualize normalization as how process such as neoliberalism are normalized rather than as being seen as reflecting situations of inequality. A disability studies approach would usually start with normal and then consider how those on the other end of the spectrum, abnormal. Then we would go onto examine the ways in which structures have been constructed and how this creates barriers for disabled people as a result.

Disability studies and queer of color methodologies can also complement one another in the production of new knowledge by 1) questioning how knowledge produced would be different if we approached disability studies with the subjectless critique and 2) the use of epistemological humility in disability studies. I think that the subjectless critique would be beneficial in the sense that it would guide us to turning our gaze away from disability at an individual level. The onus for disability is often placed on the individual rather than placing it on oppressive systems. The subjectless critique would guide us in developing a more comprehensive understanding of how structures such as capitalism, neoliberalism, globalization, and immigration affect disabled people. However, I react with some uncertainty to using the subjectless critique methodology because disability already seems like a somewhat unstable category where people with impairments or limiting conditions do not often identify with belonging to a disability community, which has implications for sustaining disability activism. The epistemology of humility has important implications for disability studies and intersectionality. I think that what Judith Butler said was important for intersectionality: that a category should not try to fully describe everything that makes up that category. I think that intersectional work often comes with many of the components of the epistemology of humility: letting go of political certainty, emphasizing difference, and decentering of the subject.

Discussion questions:

1)    How can we incorporate queer of color methodologies within the constraints of our disciplines without appropriating this knowledge and these methodologies? What processes can be used to facilitate this?

2)    What are the benefits to using the subjectless critiques? Are there limitations to the subjectless critique?