Whatever

期刊简介 · 出版商官网原文

研究范围与定位

From its very beginnings, queer has again and again proved its unpredictable productivity, its irrepressible vitality, its unconditional refusal to be circumscribed, defined, tamed. Queer is, of course, well established in the field of LGBTI studies, where it has quickly achieved the worldwide recognition it deserves; in addition, today, scholars and activists the world over are spinning queer outwards in a range of new and exciting directions, such as (to name but a few) neuroqueer, animal queer, queer economies, queer pedagogies, or the queer politics of migration. Their daring and original work is a powerful testimonial to the productivity and vitality of a clusterof theories which deserve to be more widely known and applied, both in scholarship, teaching and research, and in activism, advocacy, and policy-making. We would like Whatever to host, facilitate and promote a conversation among scholars working with these theories, whatever their research interests, methodological allegiances, and disciplinary affiliations. At its most abstract, queer’s research programme hinges on the questioning of categories and the deconstruction of performances. Thus, a truly queer approach to scholarship and research cannot but begin by questioning the categories and performances which define normal and normative scholarly identities as they are constituted, exacted, and rewarded. Two of the most fundamental constructs in the production of academic normativity are the system of the disciplines, with its definitions, boundaries, and hierarchies, and the opposition between specialists and laypeople, which entails the systematic devaluing of the latter’s experiences and forms of knowledge, and the distrust of their abilities to achieve insight into their own predicament, and to elaborate viable solutions to their own problems. The forms and devices of normativity and oppression overlap and strengthen one another. This makes any faith in a reductionist epistemology of separate disciplines not only intellectually simplistic but politically futile. Queer theory is not an idle pastime but a basic and effective tool to achieve change: it can accommodate any disciplinary perspective because the world is bigger than any possible description; it can accommodate any methodology because the world is more complex than any possible model. Questioning the disciplinary and methodological categories on which scholarly work is based does not mean to be disciplinarily incompetent or method