At the time of Tom Boellstorff’s (2007) article ‘Queer Studies in the House of Anthropology,’ little anthropological research had been undertaken in the realm of non-normative sexualities and genders in non-western contexts. Along with this, there was a lack of scholarship on female non-normative sexualities in both western and non-western contexts. Boellstorff (2007:21) argued that this gap in anthropological research was due to a range of factors; particularly the continued barriers women face cross culturally in accessing both public and private space away from males. In this essay I will argue that anthropologists have since attempted to fill this gap. With ethnographic monographs on non-normative sexualities in non-western contexts arising,
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In analyzing the intersections between race, gender, sexuality, class and nation, Boellstorff (2007:18) unpacks issues that have plagued queer anthropology since Kath Weston’s 1993 work ‘Lesbian/Gay Studies in the House of Anthropology.’ Boellstorff (2007) explores a plethora of things that impact upon queer anthropology, ranging from the objection to the name ‘queer’ anthropology, to ideas of globalism and cross cultural understandings of sexuality and non-normative practices. He argues that fundamental dichotomies and definitions of sexuality in western culture are divergent in others; particularly framing understandings of the terms ‘heterosexual’ and ‘homosexual’ as culturally constructed, by referencing the notion that for some, heterosexual may not be related to gender at all (Boellstorff 2007:26). His work also investigates the ‘inability to definitively fuse or separate sexuality and gender,’ and the consequences this may have upon ‘desire, embodiment and intersubjectivity,’ and argues that anthropological research has the potential to play an important role in solving the question of why the two categories are so often brought together (Boellstorff 2007:26).This exploration of gender and sexuality in anthropology informs his argument that non-normative sexualities have been under-studied in ethnography, and opens the door to the question of where queer anthropology is now, and if this gap has been closed since Boellstorff’s
In analyzing the intersections between race, gender, sexuality, class and nation, Boellstorff (2007:18) unpacks issues that have plagued queer anthropology since Kath Weston’s 1993 work ‘Lesbian/Gay Studies in the House of Anthropology.’ Boellstorff (2007) explores a plethora of things that impact upon queer anthropology, ranging from the objection to the name ‘queer’ anthropology, to ideas of globalism and cross cultural understandings of sexuality and non-normative practices. He argues that fundamental dichotomies and definitions of sexuality in western culture are divergent in others; particularly framing understandings of the terms ‘heterosexual’ and ‘homosexual’ as culturally constructed, by referencing the notion that for some, heterosexual may not be related to gender at all (Boellstorff 2007:26). His work also investigates the ‘inability to definitively fuse or separate sexuality and gender,’ and the consequences this may have upon ‘desire, embodiment and intersubjectivity,’ and argues that anthropological research has the potential to play an important role in solving the question of why the two categories are so often brought together (Boellstorff 2007:26).This exploration of gender and sexuality in anthropology informs his argument that non-normative sexualities have been under-studied in ethnography, and opens the door to the question of where queer anthropology is now, and if this gap has been closed since Boellstorff’s