[Badgirlz-list] queer workshop in hamburg

> Workshop in Hamburg
>
> Fri/Sat 26/27 September 2003
>
> Intervention rather than Integration
>
> Queer/feminist critique of European Politics and
> Globalisation
>
> ?The organisation of sex and gender once had
> functions other than itself it
> organized society. Now it only organizes and
> reproduces itself.
> (Rubin 'The Traffic in Women' 1975, 199)
> With this thesis, Gayle Rubin in 1975 threw open a
> window on a promising
> vista: Arguing that the hierarchical differentiation
> of the sexes had dwindled
> to an anachronism, she asserted that regimes of
> normative heterosexuality and
> rigid binary sex/genders can be challenged
> politically. From the mid-1980s
> onwards, queer theories and politics have taken up
> this argument; doubting
> however that sex and sexuality have indeed lost
> their socio-structural
> meaning. Rather, queer theory now and newly asks
> about the function of sex and
> sexuality for the organisation of society and of
> concrete social practices and
> institutions. This widening perspective is implied
> in the term
> 'heteronormativity'. Rigid binary sex/genders and
> normative heterosexuality do
> not only shape identities, relationships or desire
> but also social
> institutions and processes.
>
> It is in this spirit that we intend the workshop
> 'Intervention rather than
> Integration' to take place: we wish to sharpen the
> socio-theoretical aspect of
> queer theory and connect it to a critique of
> globalisation. We not only intend
> to consider how the heterosexualised gender
> relations are socio-historically
> conditioned and bio-politically constituted. We also
> want to examine the
> social, political and economic roles that sex and
> sexuality play in keeping in
> place national and global capitalist and racist
> patterns. Moreover, for gender
> and sexual identities under post-modern, neo-liberal
> social conditions there
> is the need to question the role of
> individualisation and flexibility as well
> as of the increased acceptance and social
> integration of divergent life
> models.
> The concept of integration deserves our particular
> attention. It is, after
> all, not only decisive in the areas of migration and
> sexual politics, but also
> in 'European Politics' as well as international
> institutions and globalised
> economy. In all of those contexts the allegedly
> progressive term 'integration'
> in fact serves to spread the norms of the dominant,
> eurocentric culture, to
> install its hierarchies and to conceal annexations.
> We want to examine the
> homogenisation and exclusion which in fact result
> out of concepts of
> integration. They manifest in the shape of racist
> border regimes, migration
> and security politics, the economisation of social
> politics and the
> diminishing principles of solidarity ? here we wish
> to focus on the categories
> of sex and sexuality:
> ? What is the meaning of societal organisation of
> sex and sexuality for
> neo-liberal politics of inclusion and exclusion in
> the areas of work,
> education and social rights?
> ? To what extent do politics of asylum and migration
> make use of the
> 'naturalness' of normative heterosexuality and rigid
> binary sex/genders, in
> their attempts to suppress mobility within and into
> Europe?
> ? What does this mean in terms of the new EU member
> states: who 'desires'
> accession and for what reasons; what is the price
> for membership and who will
> profit? Why would one refuse to accede and who gets
> refused?
> ? How are racist and ethnicising practices connected
> to social relations of
> sex and sexuality? To what extent are migration
> movements regulated by issues
> of sex and sexuality?
> What are the functions of sex and sexuality for
> the formation of social
> subjectivities and the organisation of society in a
> globalising world of
> information webs and financial capital? In what way
> are these functions
> subject to highly dissimilar conditions in northern,
> western, eastern,
> southern, post-fordian, post-socialist,
> post-colonial societies?
> ? How can these 'functions' be defined at all, given
> specific
> socio-geo-historical conditions and taking into
> account the possibility that
> there might not be one uniform regime of sex and
> sexuality, but rather a
> multiplicity of manifold, contradictory,
> more-or-less-hegemonic discourses and
> practices?
> ? How rigid and binding ? as opposed to flexible and
> voluntary ? are the
> implied norms, practices, techniques and mechanisms?
> To what extent is
> 'functionality' implemented through the active
> participation of individuals?
>
> Form / Forum / Future:
> With the two-day workshop 'Intervention rather than
> Integration' we wish to
> create a forum for theoretical and political
> debates. Rather than applying
> structure to the range of topics, and having formal
> papers, we want to make
> space for the multiplicity of interests,
> perspectives and competences through
> short and stimulating presentations or input (in any
> media format). It is with
> view to this that we do not send out a Call for
> Papers but instead send a
> Call for Postcards.
> Anybody who is interested in the Workshop, please
> send ? by 15 August ? an
> electronic or paper postcard that contains in verbal
> or (audio-)visual form a
> contribution to the debate outlined above. We intend
> to provide pre-workshop
> web-access to the postcards for participants,
> providing a chance of
> 'cross-fertilisation' and enabling participants to
> refer to each other's
> contributions in their input. We hope that
> discussions in the workshop will
> enable us to develop topics and a network that might
> lead to an international
> conference in the near future.
> At the moment we are preparing the workshop in
> English and German. But given
> the topic we would like to open up the event towards
> more languages and also
> to experiment on modes of translation. For this
> purpose we will provide an
> electronic diary and invite everybody to come up
> with ideas and competences
> for running a multi-lingual conference debate.
>
> Please send your postcards by 15 August, 2003 to:
> esi2004@???
> Antke Engel and Claudia Koltzenburg
>
> with many thanks to Encarnación Gutiérrez Rodríguez
> and Nina Schulz for their
> contributions to the concept.
>
> Claudia Koltzenburg (Hamburg),
> European Lesbian Studies, WILD (www.sappho.net/wild)
> and amnesty international, German Chapter,
> Sexual Identity and Human Rights, MeRSI
> (www.amnesty.de/de/2918)
>
> Dr. Antke Engel
> Associate Professor of Queer Theory
> University of Hamburg
> Institute of Sociology
> Allende Platz 1
> D - 20146 Hamburg
> Germany
>


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