Between the sheets: The queer sociality of Bombay zines

ABSTRACT

With a particular focus on zines produced in Bombay from the 1990s to 2000s, this essay draws on and thinks with the masala that flavored the pages of three prominent Bombay queer zines: Bombay Dost, Scripts and Gaysi Zine. Through close readings of specific volumes, I demonstrate that zines constitute not only an overlooked archive of queer and trans cultures in India but have also been crucial to facilitating ‘queer sociality’ (Rodríguez 2011) between the sheets of the zine’s pages and in the worlds through which its copies might travel. I develop the concept of masala-with a queer accent (Khubchandani 2020)-to reflect its usage and meaning in queer spaces to reference sex, messiness, gossip and at times unruliness and nonresectable behavior. Extending its potential, I suggest that masala names not only a genre of content that is erotically charged or gossip-laden but is perhaps itself an analytic or technique by which queer subjects make political claims and forge community.

KEYWORDS:

• Queer zines
• print cultures
• queer sociality
• Bombay zines
• masala
• gossip

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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

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Brian A. Horton

Brian A. Horton is a cultural anthropologist working at the intersections of queer studies, critical theory, popular culture, digital anthropology, and South Asian studies. His research projects broadly focus on sexual, gender, and racial minority subjects and the social worlds that they build at the interstices of recognition and discrimination. Brian’s work has appeared in South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies; Sexualities; POLAR; QED: A Journal in GLBTQ Worldmaking; and the edited volume Queer Nightlife (Michigan Press).