Queering Tropically: Sexuality, Indigeneity, Decoloniality, Spatiality

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.25120/etropic.23.2.2024.4108

Keywords:

queering the tropics, queer tropes, queering tropically, queer sexuality, queer Indigeneity, decoloniality, queer spatiality, LGBTQIA2

Abstract

This is the second collection of papers in a two-part issue on the theme of Queering the Tropics. This second issue begins by delving into the notion of “Queering Tropically,” in other words, queering in a tropical manner or in the manner of the tropics. The term queering tropically simultaneously alludes to queering through tropes (figurative and performative), and queering through tropical materiality (climate, elements, nature). This issue asserts that the tropics has always been a space where queerness lives, not a place where queerness has arrived post colonialism; queerness was and is often recognized as part of nature in the tropics. This assertion is evident in discussions of Sexuality, Queer Indigeneity, and Decoloniality. Furthermore, Queering the Tropics in attending to the queer across the worldly zone of the tropics is inherently a spatial practice. The tropics, as the Other of the temperate zone, has been subjected to waves of colonialisms and their patriarchal and heteronormative power structures. Yet, the tropics subverts and inverts the structures and strictures of the temperate zone, and this Tropical Queer Spatiality opens up to myriad ways of queer being and becoming. Thus, the papers collected together in this special issue offers a richness that furthers queer studies.

Author Biographies

Christian Jil R. Benitez, Ateneo de Manila University, the Philippines & Chulalongkorn University, Thailand

Christian Jil R. Benitez is a queer Filipino scholar, poet, and translator. He teaches at the Ateneo de Manila University in the Philippines, where he earned his AB-MA in Filipino literature. He is currently pursuing his PhD in comparative literature at Chulalongkorn University, under a Second Century Fund (C2F) Scholarship. His critical and creative works have appeared in various journals and anthologies; the most recent include Poetry and the Global Climate Crisis (Routledge, 2023) and Here was Once the Sea: An Anthology of Southeast Asian Ecowriting (University of Hawaii Press, 2024). His first book, Isang Dalumat ng Panahon (ADMU Press, 2022), was awarded the Best Book of Literary Studies/Cultural Criticism in the 41st Philippine National Book Awards. His English translation of Jaya Jacobo’s Arasahas: Poems from the Tropics was recently published by PAWA Press and Paloma Press.

Gregory Luke Chwala, University of Cincinnati, Blue Ash, USA

Luke Chwala is Visiting Assistant Professor of English at the University of Cincinnati, Blue Ash, USA. He writes from the positionality of a decolonial, queer scholar of the environmental humanities whose work most specifically examines the ways in which fictional texts and imaginary worlds offer decolonial solutions. Specifically, he specializes in nineteenth-century Gothic literature and British culture as well as decolonial and transatlantic queer studies from the nineteenth through the twenty-first century. His most recent work proposes what he has coined as decolonial queer ecologies as a reparative reading strategy of colonial-themed transatlantic Gothic and speculative fiction. He has published work in queer, postcolonial, race, and Gothic studies, including Edinburgh University Press Companions, and the journals eTropic and the Victorian Review. He is co-editor of the University of Wales Press new series, Queer and Trans Intersections.

Anita Lundberg, James Cook University, Australia

Anita Lundberg is an adjunct Associate Professor and cultural anthropologist. Her interdisciplinary ethnographies across Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia explore the intertwinings of tropical nature~culture. Anita’s awards and fellowships include: LIA TransOceanik (CNRS, JCU, Collége de France); The Cairns Institute; Evans Fellow, Cambridge University, UK; Guest Researcher, Maison Asie-Pacifique, Université de Provence, France; Visiting Fellow, Institute of the Malay World and Civilization, National University Malaysia; and Anthropologist-in-Residence, Rimbun Dahan, Malaysia. She has published extensively in academic journals, editing numerous Special Issues. Anita has curated exhibitions in NY, LA, Paris, and Sydney, and her own research has been exhibited at the Australian National Maritime Museum, the National Art Gallery of Malaysia, and Alliance de Française. She was a Post-Doctoral Fellow, Cambridge University, UK, has a PhD in Anthropology, an MA in Science & Technology Studies, and a liberal arts BA. After academic stints in Australia and Singapore, she now lives in Bali. She writes in queer solidarity.

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Published

2024-10-15

How to Cite

Benitez, C. J. R., Chwala, G. L., & Lundberg, A. (2024). Queering Tropically: Sexuality, Indigeneity, Decoloniality, Spatiality. ETropic: Electronic Journal of Studies in the Tropics, 23(2), 1–18. https://doi.org/10.25120/etropic.23.2.2024.4108

Issue

Vol. 23 No. 2 (2024): Queering the Tropics, Part 2. Queering Tropically: Sexuality, Indigeneity, Decoloniality, Spatiality

Section

Introduction to Special Issue

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