Roger N. Lancaster – Författare

The Gender/Sexuality Reader is a sophisticated survey which contextualizes gender and sexuality in a matrix of varied racial formations, nationalisms, colonialisms, imperialisms and movements for social change. Contributors include: Lila Abu-Lughod, Janice Boddy, Susan Bordo, Judith Butler, Jane Collier, Jane L. Collins, Teresa de Lauretis, Janadas Devan, Micaela di Leonardo, John D'Emilio, Ann Fausto-Sterling, Susan Gal, David F. Greenberg, Matthew Gutman, Jacalyn D. Harden, Lori L. Heise, Geraldine Heng, Darlene Clark Hine, Evelyn Fox Keller, Roger Lancaster, Thomas Laqueur, Catherine A. Lutz, Emily Martin, Richard Parker, Cindy Patton, Rosalind Petchesky, Elizabeth A. Povinelli, Rayna Rapp, Michelle Rosaldo, Ellen Ross, Lousia Schein, Nancy Scheper-Hughes, Amartya Sen, Elizabeth Sheehan, Siobhan Somerville, Susan Sperling, Judith Stacey, Arlene Stein, Ann Stoler, Carole S. Vance, Sylvia Yanagisako, and Patricia Zavella.

'Rambo took the barrios by storm: Spanish videotapes of the movie were widely available, and nearly all the boys and young men had seen it, usually on the VCRs of their family's more affluent friends...As one young Sandinista commented, 'Rambo is like the Nicaraguan soldier. He's a superman. And if the United States invades, we'll cut the marines down like Rambo did.' And then he mimicked Rambo's famous war howl and mimed his arc of machine gun fire. We both laughed' - from the book. There is a Nicaragua that Americans have rarely seen or heard about, a nation of jarring political paradoxes and staggering social and cultural flux. In this Nicaragua, the culture of machismo still governs most relationships, insidious racism belies official declarations of ethnic harmony, sexual relationships between men differ starkly from American conceptions of homosexuality, and fascination with all things American is rampant. Roger Lancaster reveals the enduring character of Nicaraguan society as he records the experiences of three families and their community through times of war, hyperinflation, dire shortages, and political turmoil.Life is hard for the inhabitants of working class barrios like Dona Flora, who expects little from men and who has reared her four children with the help of a constant female companion; and life is hard for Miguel, undersized and vulnerable, stigmatized as a cochon - a 'faggot' - until he learned to fight back against his brutalizers. Through candid discussions with young and old Nicaraguans, men and women, Lancaster constructs an account of the successes and failures of the 1979 Sandinista Revolution, documenting the effects of war and embargo on the cultural and economic fabric of Nicaraguan society. He tracks the break up of families, surveys informal networks that allow female-headed households to survive, explores the gradual transformation of the culture of machismo, and reveals a world where heroic efforts have been stymied and the best hopes deferred. This vast chronicle is sustained by a rich theoretical interpretation of the meanings of ideology, power, and the family in a revolutionary setting. Played out against a backdrop of political travail and social dislocation, this work is a story of survival and resistance but also of humor and happiness.Roger Lancaster shows us that life is hard, but then too, life goes on.

Roger N. Lancaster provides the definitive rebuttal of evolutionary just-so stories about men, women, and the nature of desire in this spirited expose of the heterosexual fables that pervade popular culture, from prime-time sitcoms to scientific theories about the so-called gay gene. Lancaster links the recent resurgence of biological explanations for gender norms, sexual desires, and human nature in general with the current pitched battles over sexual politics. Ideas about a 'hardwired' and immutable human nature are circulating at a pivotal moment in human history, he argues, one in which dramatic changes in gender roles and an unprecedented normalization of lesbian and gay relationships are challenging received notions and commonly held convictions on every front. "The Trouble with Nature" takes on major media sources - the "New York Times", "Newsweek" - and widely ballyhooed scientific studies and ideas to show how journalists, scientists, and others invoke the rhetoric of science to support political positions in the absence of any real evidence.Lancaster also provides a novel and dramatic analysis of the social, historical, and political backdrop for changing discourses on 'nature', including an incisive critique of the failures of queer theory to understand the social conflicts of the moment. By showing how reductivist explanations for sexual orientation lean on essentialist ideas about gender, Lancaster invites us to think more deeply and creatively about human acts and social relations.

One evening, while watching the news, Roger N. Lancaster was startled by a report that a friend, a gay male school teacher, had been arrested for a sexually based crime. The resulting hysteria threatened to ruin the life of an innocent man. In this passionate and provocative book, Lancaster blends astute analysis, robust polemic, ethnography, and personal narrative to delve into the complicated relationship between sexuality and punishment in our society. Drawing on classical social science, critical legal studies, and queer theory, he tracks the rise of a modern suburban culture of fear and develops new insights into the punitive logic that has put down deep roots in everyday American life.

Being gay is not a given. Through a rigorous ethnographic inquiry into the material foundations of sexual identity, The Struggle to Be Gay makes a compelling argument for the centrality of social class in gay life—in Mexico, for example, and by extension in other places as well.  Known for his writings on the construction of sexual identities, anthropologist and cultural studies scholar Roger N. Lancaster ponders four decades of visits to Mexican cities. In a brisk series of reflections combining storytelling, ethnography, critique, and razor-edged polemic, he shows, first, how economic inequality affects sexual subjects and subjectivities in ways both obvious and subtle, and, second, how what it means to be de ambiente—“on the scene” or “in the life”—has metamorphosed under changing political-economic conditions. The result is a groundbreaking intervention into ongoing debates over identity politics—and a renewal of our understanding of how identities are constructed, struggled for, and lived.