Follow the yellow brick road: An anthropological outing in queer space

Abstract

This article contends that anthropology is still operating with theories and models that too often reflect the assumption of the universal heterosexuality of social actors. This assumption has obscured the many significant ways in which ‘heterosexual’ and ‘homosexual’ experience of culture and society differ from each other. In order to highlight the nature of some of these differences and their implications for anthropological theorising, approaches from queer theory are brought to bear on the anthropological treatment of spatial relations. Not only do queer insights improve our understanding of spatial relations, they can also help to expand anthropology's focus on sexuality to include the sexual subtexts of a wide range of ostensibly non‐sexual social and cultural topics.

Keywords:

• queer theory
• spatial relations
• Euro‐American gay and lesbian culture