ABSTRACT
In this essay, I argue that while queer studies within communication and cultural studies must take a transnational and decolonizing turn to move away from solely white and US-centric ways of conceptualizing queer lives and experiences, it should also further theorize the role of mediation, new media technologies, and quick media applications in queer worldmaking.
During the summer of 2019, the National Communication Association (NCA) and its members began to engage in discussions about inclusivity, diversity, equity, and access for BIPOC (Black, indigenous, and people of color), international, queer, and other historically marginalized communities that were asking for structural changes to value the work they produce. This particular special issue forum in Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies came about as an effort to spotlight queer studies within the communication studies discipline. I argue that even though some progress has been made in terms of queering our discipline, queer studies has unfortunately not made a meaningful impact on our field, at least not as much as we critical cultural, transnational, postcolonial, and decolonial scholars want to see. Although there is more visibility of queer scholarship in NCA journals and in other publications, the scope of these publications is still limited, and they predominantly engage with or examine mainstream white, US-centric queer lives and issues. Hence, the authors from this forum offer possible new directions to further diversify queer communication studies. Collectively, we aim to decolonize our larger discipline as well as that of queer communication studies.
This issue of further diversification has materialized during very challenging times both nationally and globally. In 2020, the world faced and is still facing in 2021 a deadly global pandemic. Even though the queer and trans* communities in the US and around the world have experienced the grave realities of the AIDS epidemic for decades, they yet again face a new health challenge that has influenced their lives in so many different ways. In addition to the pandemic, in the summer of 2020, the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement continued to articulate the structural oppression that Black US Americans face in our country. This movement once again showed us that the visible and invisible power structures, continuous violent acts and discrimination, and killings of Black and Brown bodies are the direct outcome of certain ideologies that repeatedly put Black communities in continuous danger. BLM also reminds us that our identities are intersectional and that Black queer and trans* individuals experience greater and deeper oppression and discrimination. Lastly, when we finalized the preparations for this special issue forum on queer studies, as a country, we were still living in a very anti-immigrant and transphobic environment, one which put so many people at risk, shattered their lives, and crushed their hopes of finding solace, creating a home or a sense of belonging, and performing their identities. Hence, this forum invites communication and critical cultural studies scholars to reflect on the political, ideological, and academic agendas of queer theory and queer studies, to recognize their commitments to opening up new spaces, and to include marginalized voices into our disciplinary discussions. In the following paragraphs, I outline a very brief history of queer studies within the communication discipline, articulate the goals of this forum, and briefly preview the forum essays.
Queer communication studies
Queer theory as a form of critical theory emerged in the early 1990s and grew out of queer studies, women’s studies, literary studies, and philosophy. Similarly, queer studies as a field of inquiry relating to sexual orientation and gender identity centered around LGBT history and literary studies and later expanded to include sociology, anthropology, political science, psychology, philosophy, biology, and ethics. In the mid-to-late 1990s and the early 2000s, communication scholars, including Larry Gross, James Chesebro, Tony Slagle, John Sloop, Thomas Nakayama, and Gust Yep, began to engage in queer discourse and articulate clear connections between queer theory, queer studies, and communication. Their work charted unexamined areas in the field and established the beginnings of queer communication studies. In 2003, Gust Yep, John Elia, and Karen Lovaas edited a special issue of the Journal of Homosexuality entitled “Queer Theory and Communication: From Disciplining Queers to Queering the Discipline(s).” At the time, not many essays focusing on gay, lesbian, or queer issues were being published in NCA journals even though the association’s Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Communication Studies Division and its Caucus on Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Concerns were already in existence. In 2003, this special issue was turned into an edited book and was published by Hampton Press. In addition to the editors’ efforts, this collection included works from seasoned and up-and-coming scholars in the field, such as Jacqueline Taylor, E. Patrick Johnson, Kent Drummond, Thomas Nakayama, Frederick Corey, Jack Halberstam, Bryant Alexander, Craig Gingrich-Philbrook, and Lisa Henderson. This collection became the cornerstone work that established the legitimacy of queer theory and research in the field.
Over the years, scholars from different theoretical and methodological backgrounds ranging from media studies to interpersonal communication and from rhetorical criticism to autoethnography have examined the multiple aspects of queer lives, queer performances, LGBTQ+ history, queer pedagogy, and queer identity constructions and performances. Scholars such as Lisa Henderson, Katherine Sender, Charles E. Morris III, Dana Cloud, Daniel Brower, Michaela Meyer, Jeffrey Bennett, Thomas Dunn, Bernadette Calafell, Shinsuke Eguchi, Tony Adams, Keith Berry, Karma Chávez, Amber Johnson, Benny LeMaster, Jimmie Manning, Danielle Stern, Stephanie Young, Godfried Asante, E. Cram, and others have employed different methodological and theoretical frameworks to expand the scope of the field and bring more attention to queer research within the discipline. For example, Karma Chávez’s special issue, “Out of Bounds? Queer Intercultural Communication” in the Journal of International and Intercultural Communication is an outcome of this deliberate move to queer the discipline. Similarly, Shinsuke Eguchi’s journal special issue called “Global Queer and Trans* Studies,” which will appear in a future issue of the Journal of International and Intercultural Communication, intends not only to diversify the discipline but also offer to new direction and open new possibilities for queer communication studies.
One of the main criticisms of queer theory and queer studies is that most of the scholarship revolves around mainstream, often white, US experiences and issues. The lack of voices of queer scholars of color, trans* scholars, and transnational scholars in various special issues and edited books further proves the heavy presence of white and US-centric queer perspectives and the visible absence of marginalized queer and trans scholars in the discourse of queer communication. As such, this particular focus on white issues creates a hierarchy of queer experience by overtly emphasizing white ideals. Moreover, it establishes a particular queer reality as a queer norm for diverse bodies within and outside of the US. With this critique in mind, I proposed this special issue forum idea to Greg Dickinson to highlight the current issues and debates within queer communication studies. I am grateful for his leadership and openness to include such a needed forum in Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies. I built the idea of this forum on two important and interrelated pillars: first, on the importance of intersectionality and identity politics within queer studies and second, on the need to propose a transnational turn, where transnational voices and experiences are articulated and highlighted, within the field. I am hopeful that this forum will carve out “queer” and “trans*” spaces within critical and cultural studies for new voices to articulate the often ignored or silenced queer and trans* experiences and issues. Moreover, I hope that this issue opens up new pathways within the field and offers different approaches to engage with queer and communication scholarship.
The goals of the forum
This special forum intends to carve out a space to articulate the current issues and debates within queer communication studies and to offer new directions and pathways. This forum will also provide a much-needed space to rethink the role of queer theory and queer studies in our field and empower our scholars to engage in crucial discussions about diversity, queerness, and intersectionality.
I wholeheartedly join with the authors in this forum who critiqued the dominance of the white and US-centric (and transphobic) discourse of queer theorizing, including its foundations, the methodological approaches and topic of inquiries, and how queer studies has been conceptualized within the larger communication studies field. While these arguments illuminate the emergent need to decolonize queer communication studies, they also acknowledge the imposed rhetoric of settler colonialism within queer studies. Simultaneously, these arguments also invite within communication and cultural studies the exploration of new ways to combat the negative and harmful impact of transphobia as well as the queer logic and rhetoric that does not recognize the settler colonialism of nonwhite, immigrant, and non-US bodies. Hence, we collectively call for positive, meaningful, and effective change by creating new trajectories that will actively fight against visible, invisible, and often interlinked oppressive local, national and global structures, change that will open up new spaces (both academic and nonacademic) for transnational and nontransphobic queer theorizing. We also call for centering the marginalized queer and trans work and voices that consistently occupy the margins of our discipline.
Preview of the essays
The authors in this forum were posed the following questions to consider in their responses:
How much visibility is given to queer scholarship within the NCA and in NCA journals?
Is queer theory a widely accepted framework within critical/cultural studies?
Have we managed to transnationalize queer studies within our field?
What could “intersectional and transnational queer” perspectives offer to communication studies?
What are the new and future pathways for queer research in our discipline?
Besides this introduction, the forum features six short essays where the authors articulate new avenues for queer communication studies. Collectively, the authors in this forum offer critiques and call for new directions in queer communication and critical/cultural studies. Their collective works recognize the different layers and intersections in queer and trans* lives and experiences. Hence, these collective voices invite communication scholars to consider a trans-person-centered communication approach, transnational and decolonizing turns, and the centrality of the discourse of race, ethnicity, and nationality in queer communication studies.
In “Trans (Gender) Trouble,” Benny LeMaster and Megan Stephenson call for abandoning queer theory altogether since existing queer theories are theoretically struggling to account for transness. In its place, they offer trans-person-centered approaches to communication research and a re-envisioning of our discipline. The next three essays call for a transnational and decolonizing turn in queer communication studies. In “What is ‘Queer Asia?’: A Struggling Pathway to Globalizing Queer Studies in Communication,” Shinsuke Eguchi articulates their struggles with the idea of queer Asia. In this piece, Eguchi offers the fusion of queer color critique and a transnational critique to conceptualize queer Asia as a study of inquiry and a pathway in communication and critical/cultural studies. Shuzhen Huang, in “Why Does Communication Need Transnational Queer Studies?,” joins Eguchi to support a transnational turn for queer studies and argues that we must embrace transnationalism as an epistemological and methodological intervention in communication and critical/cultural studies. In their essay, “Decolonizing Queer Modernities: The Case for Queer (Post)Colonial Studies in Critical/Cultural Communication,” Godfried Asante and Jenna N. Hanchey use a Ghanaian case study to illuminate the need for a queer (post)colonial critique within our discipline to examine nonwhite and non-US-based queer lives, and they explore the impact of US-centric queer culture on the rest of the world. In my essay, “Transnational and Decolonizing Queer Digital/Quick Media and Cyberculture Studies,” I join to these scholars in their call for a transnational and a decolonial turn in queer communication studies as well as in critical/cultural studies. I argue that while we employ transnational and decolonizing queer frameworks, we must combine them with digital/quick media and cyberspace studies to explore transnational yet digitalized and mediated queer lives through hybrid and new methodologies. Finally, Leland G. Spencer, in “Looking for Truths in the Stories We Tell in Queer Communication Studies,” invites communication studies scholars to consider the importance of how we use language, especially when it relates to the relationships and differences among gender, sex, gender identity, and sexual orientation. Spencer argues that the discourse of race, ethnicity, and nationality must remain central to queer communication scholarship.