Que(e)rying homonormativity : the everyday politics of lesbian and gay homemaking

Research output: Chapter in Book / Conference PaperChapter

Abstract

The tone of radical queer critiques of lesbian and gay homes and domestic lives has tended to disparage domesticity as ‘homonormative’, arguably framing investment in the home as part of homosexual assimilation with the conservative, middle-class social mainstream. In this logic, it is claimed that lesbian and gay affiliation to domesticity induces a privatized, demobilized and depoliticized constituency. This chapter critically contests that assumption. Drawing on insights from a range of my own projects on lesbian and gay domesticity in Australia, and a critical reading of extant scholarship in geography and commensurate disciplines, I argue for a less monolithic application of homonormativity and an appreciation of the nuances of homemaking. As ordinary, very much ‘lived-in’ spaces, lesbian and gay homes are key sites of political and social change, manifested in everyday homemaking practices (Luzia 2010; Scicluna 2015). The lesbian and gay domestic sphere is not necessarily a zone of assimilation (though it can be) but also a space of resistance and transformation (Gorman-Murray 2012; Pilkey 2014). We should be wary of romanticizing traditional notions of home life, but we should also be cognizant of the political leverage of domesticity. To be clear, it is not my goal to reverse the critical discourse: domestic spaces and cultures can be assimilative and conservative, even dangerous (see Johnston and Valentine 1995; Valentine and Skelton 2003; Asquith and Fox 2016). Rather, I aim to think through the multiplicities, fractures and possibilities in/of the domestic to suggest alternative performative readings of homemaking for lesbians and gay men.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationSexuality and Gender at Home: Experience, Politics, Transgression
EditorsBrent Pilkey, Rachael M. Scicluna, Ben Campkin, Barbara Penner
Place of PublicationU.K.
PublisherBloomsbury Academic
Pages149-162
Number of pages14
ISBN (Electronic)9781474239646
ISBN (Print)9781474239622
Publication statusPublished - 2017

Keywords

  • homosexuality
  • gender identity
  • homes

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