The Queer Borderlands: The Place of Freedom and Belonging

• In Event: 035 - Section on Sex and Gender Roundtables (one-hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 11. Queering Spaces

Abstract

In this paper I will blend Anderson’s (1983), Anzaldúa’s (1999), and Collins’s (2010) conceptions of the imagined and constructed communities that are entrenched within the power systems to areas of sexuality. These communities are constantly rubbing up against dominant thought to break down the phsyical – through space and place – and theoretical – through thought, domination and oppression – constraints. This paper draws from 20 one-on-one interviews with self-identified Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and/or Queer individuals who lived in the Pacific Northwest at the time of the interview. I argue that as a response to living within the borderlands of dominant society queer individuals find a sense of freedom and belonging via their search for unique communities. Additionally I highlight how place is key for experiencing both the freedom and the sense of belonging due to living a life within the borderlands. I assert that the search for queer community leads to associations of belonging and freedom in which a mestiza consciousness has been created during the search for community itself. Although the actuality of community for many of my participants is “real,” I argue that it may be the actual notion of living within a space of marginalization that leads to the search, and that the search itself is what leads to the notion of belonging and freedom.

Author

• Kym Bradley, Georgia State University