Jón Ingvar Kjaran – författare

Drawing on ethnographic encounters with self-identified gay men in Iran, this book explores the construction, enactment, and veiling and unveiling of gay identity and same-sex desire in the capital city of Tehran. The research draws on diverse interpretive, historical, online and empirical sources in order to present critical and nuanced insights into the politics of recognition and representation and the constitution of same-sex desire under the specific conditions of Iranian modernity. As it engages with accounts of the persecuted Iranian gay male subject as a victim of the barbarism of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the book addresses interpretive questions of sexuality governance in transnational contexts and attends to issues of human rights frameworks in weighing social justice and political claims made by and on behalf of sexual and gender minorities. The book thus combines empirical data with a critical consideration of the politics of same-sex desire for Iranian gay men.

This book brings together leading scholars researching the field of gender, sexuality, schooling, queer activism, and social movements within different cultural contexts. With contributions from more than fifteen countries, the chapters bring fresh insights for students and scholars of gender and sexuality studies, education, and social movements in the Global North and South. The book draws together both theoretical and empirical contributions offering rich and multidisciplinary essays from scholars and activists in the field focusing on outreach work of QSM (Queer Social Movements) in schools, queer activism in educational settings, and the role of QSMs in supporting and informing queer youth.

This book examines queer activism and queer social movements (QSMs) in Indonesia and Malaysia, broadly engaging with these topics on three different levels: macro (global and national discourses), meso (organizational level – activities), and micro (individual – the activist). The micro level perspective allows for moving beyond the “traditional” political movement paradigm by understanding activism in Foucauldian terms as the ethics of the self (Foucault, 1984). In other words, the queer subject is seen as an active agent in taking care of the self by queering/resisting gender norms as well as heteronormative practices and regimes in their social environment through embodiment and actions. This kind of ethical being has the potential to build support and community between and amongst individuals.