Mediating queer masculinities through alternative music from Palestine
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 7154306 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Polly Withers (0000-0002-5892-3305, London School of Economics and Political Science, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2025 |
| Volume | 25 |
| Issue | 5 |
| Pages | 1063-1079 |
| Publication date | 2025-07-04 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Feminist Media Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1468-0777 • E-ISSN: 1471-5902 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/14680777.2024.2338414 |
| OpenAlex | W4394684637 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 25 |
Queer feminist media studies habitually overlooks how popular communications mediate same-sex sexualities beyond the global northwest. Thinking with this gap, this paper problematises mediated queerness in the Arab world. I use the case study of “alternative” music in Israeli-dominated Palestine to theorise how far (or not) Palestinian vernacular modalities constitute a politics of sexuality above and below—although not necessarily in opposition to—the master-narratives of LGBTQ+ recognition, visibility, and the individual closet that often overshadow global commodity platforms. Drawing on my twenty-eight-month ethnography on “alternative” music in Palestine, I explore how queer-identifying Palestinian musicians use music, drag, and performance videos to self-fashion gender and sexual identities, in the context of dominant, media-friendly visions of queerness on digital networks. Through close reading of Bashar Murad’s 2021 song and video, “maskhara” (mockery), and via interviews and ethnographic data, I argue that music constitutes a shifting politics of sexual (in)visibility in Palestine. Musicians move between visible and invisible queer subject positions, depending on audience, locality, and framing. Expanding the field’s focus on Anglo-American sexual representations, then, the contribution theorises mediated queer cultural worldmaking in contexts of settler-colonisation and militarised occupation
Aesthetics · Ancient history · Art · Palestine · Queer · Queer theory · Sociology · African Sexualities and LGBTQ+ Issues · Gender Studies · History · Jewish and Middle Eastern Studies · LGBTQ Health, Identity, and Policy
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| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,5 |
| Citation span | 2024 - 2024 (1) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |