What happens when war is what queers an ecology?

• In Event: Ecologies of Empire II

Abstract

Queer theory is integral to liberative political projects because it is about denaturalizing norms, or refuting biological justifications for hierarchy. But, in a war ecology, hierarchies among humans and their plant or animal crops, women and sexual reproduction, and human bodies in/over their environments, are deconstructed not by critical resistance from below or by transformative grassroots mobilization, but instead by the coercive regimes of war and empire. What does it mean when the presence of transgender fish in the Tigris or the prevalence of infertility among women in Fallujah signals toxicity and harm, rather than biodiversity that support human claims for gender inclusive equality? What does it mean for queer theory when, instead of choosing to distinguish sexuality from reproduction, women are forced to do so by physical violence upon their bodies; or when anomalies in living bodies do the work of holding corporate polluters accountable, but could also undermine discourse demonstrating the naturalness of “anomaly”?

Author

• Kali Rubaii, Purdue University