A Pluralist Approach to 'the International' and Human Rights for Sexual and Gender Minorities

Datos Bibliográficos

ID3945392
AutoresPo-Han Lee (0000-0001-7547-1235, autor de correspondencia)
Año2021
Volumen128
Número1
Páginas79-95
Fecha de publicación2021-07-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaFeminist Review (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0141-7789 • E-ISSN: 1466-4380
EditorialSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/01417789211015333
OpenAlexW3185177598
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas4
Referencias citadas53

Queer theorists have considered the problems concerning the political strategy of using LGBT rights to justify racist xenophobia and using homo/transphobia to consolidate heterosexist nationalism. Their timely interventions are important in exposing state violence in the name of human rights and sovereign equality, but they have offered no alternative. They may also have reinforced the assumption of state science. This assumption is based on a trinity structure of the nation-state-sovereignty of 'modern, self-determining men', who are against each other and thereby co-built the so-called 'international'. State-centric internationalism produces exclusionary effects that undermine the rights of sexual and gender minorities. To address this, I first consider the debate over 'LGBT rights as human rights', and identify two types of cultural relativism (epistemological and political) as the categories to formulate a decolonial response to the debate. In this article, queer political theorising is pushed forward to: 1) critically evaluate universalism, 2) differentiate cultural relativism (opposing the political version of it) and 3) revise the epistemological version with decolonial-queer praxis. I propose a pluralist approach to sovereignty and human rights; informed by this approach, the lack of international consensus is remedied by recognising the polyvocality within transnational queer activism beyond the monopoly of states' representation of their own peoples. This proposal also aims to decentre modern statecraft from the political imagination of contemporary international studies scholarship

Epistemology · Human rights · Internationalism (politics) · Nationalism · Political science · Politics · Queer · Relativism · Sociology · Sovereignty · Universalism · African Sexualities and LGBTQ+ Issues · Gender Politics and Representation · Gender Studies · Law · Political Philosophy and Ethics