Is it possible to speak of "queer embodied epistemology" in a neoliberal world?

This essay aims to approach a possible queer epistemology, using the body as the center and the exploration of the idea of ​​epistemic violence against dissident bodies, and to discuss the viability of this epistemology to exist ethically in a neoliberal world. This discussion calls into question the current agendas of the LGBTQIA+ movement and aims to discuss which bodies they are intended for, or better yet, who from the current claims?

First, we must understand the meaning of bringing the body to the center of the queer epistemological discussion and in what sense this use of the body would take place. Diana Taylor (2003) approaches knowledge from two major categories: the archive and the repertoire. The archive would be composed of texts, documents, buildings, evidence, images, and the repertoire, by songs, rituals, dances, sports, gestures, languages ​​, and others, that is, the archive would be composed of materials supposedly resistant and, the repertoire, by ephemeral elements of embodied practice. The repertoire would then be characterized by a performative practice and, in turn, performance, according to Taylor (2003), can be seen as that which is transferred in an opposite way to the archive, where the presence of a body that transmits knowledge and a body that learns (thinking that these places of transmission and acceptance are subverted and opposed in the transference process). In this sense, the repertoire is the instance of knowledge that will be rescued here to support a queer epistemological practice — a practice that could not be disembodied.

Knowledge considered from the practices and rituals of the body — repertoire — cannot also be displaced from the interlocution between bodies — pairs, trios, groups, or crowds. The crowds — collectives, occupations, collaborations — are a symbol of the queer movement’s insurgency, as shown by Preciado (2011). No matter what the space, the change proposed by queer subjects takes place, beyond the body, from the group, in counterpoint to an individualist perspective that is characteristic of neoliberal spaces.

Thus, to think of queer epistemology it is necessary to think not only the body, but the collective as power centers, after all, a collective has the strength to carry legacies beyond a simple life — characteristic action of queer groups and other dissidents. We then arrive at a first approximation of what would be a queer epistemology: an embodied and collective praxis focused on the emergence of narratives, knowledge, and exchanges of dissident groups of sex and gender. However, what is the importance of valuing queer epistemology as “embodied praxis”? Bourcier (2020) tells us that: “We need living archives and resource centers that do not fall into the tale of patrimonialization/nationalization or museification of the “social movement” and all these “moving bodies” since they are not dead. (BOURCIER, 2020, p. 217)”.

Therefore, the collective and the queer embodied know-praxis function as this space for the maintenance of live archives, or as Taylor (2003) puts it, repertoires. We believe that using the body as the center and collective transference as a means, queer crowds can promote the longevity of living archives/narratives/subjectivities/experiences and combat epistemic violence against bodies that are marginalized and displaced from spaces of power; the queer body, by taking back control of its narratives and bringing its practices to the fore, escapes the marginalization of its knowledge and its value. After all, the action of epistemic violence is precisely in the regulation of bodies’ accesses — regulation given from the control of knowledge and practices from a distance from embodied knowledge. “Epistemic violence consists of controlling subjects who are marginalized from the knowledge and their productions through various operations of exclusion, erasure, delimitation, regulation, disappropriation/cultural appropriation, and incorporation. In fine, they make it possible to obtain surplus value on the shoulders of subjects with subordinate or invisible knowledge in the form of direct or indirect extraction. (BOURCIER, 2020, p. 89)”.

That is, to embody and collectivize knowledge ends up also having a function of breaking with the bases of neoliberal capitalism and with the controls perpetrated by it. After all, the construction and exchange of knowledge do not only take place in an intellectual or rationalized sphere; by controlling the productions and practices of marginalized subjects, the neoliberal system delimits the validity and possible access that these bodies can have, thus, still according to Bourcier (2020), opposes the subject’s body to liberal and neoliberal, limited, desexualizing subjectivation and depoliticizing is (or should be) part of queer praxis.

Thus, a queer epistemology could not be done ethically when allied to the neoliberal ideas; thinking that neoliberalism often includes only those, as defined by Bourcier (2020), considered good homos. An ethical and real queer praxis needs to consider the bodies — needs, anguishes, struggles, vanities — of the collective, think of performance as the center, the body as resistance, and, above all, question the attempt to rationalize or frame the dissenting subjectivities practiced by the neoliberal system. “The praxis and subjectivities of queer and transfeminist acting exist, and it is not by chance that the body and performance play a central role in them. May the body be one of the main supports of resistance. Capitalist and neoliberal subjectivation are flawed. Much has been written about the new spirit of capitalism, but very little about the new body it produces. Gays, lesbians, and trans* are not all “good homos”. Far from it. (BOURCIER, 2020, p. 116)”.

In other words, the point brought up by Bourier (2020) and the focus of the debate in this article is: queer (and transfeminist) epistemological practice exists; however, it cannot be given in fact when it is considered only a subject considered as a good homo as possible. of claims and inclusions, for example, marriage between same-sex and gender couples was a much-debated agenda after 2010, to the point of being reached in several countries, however, is this one of the most urgent agendas within the LGBTQIA+ movement? Wouldn’t this be just an agenda from the subjects, or rather, an agenda that is both primordial and just a part of the group’s usufruct? Wouldn’t it be an agenda that is often co-opted by neoliberal governments, in the best practice of bread and circuses, to divert attention from the high rates of violence and murder to which the LGBTQIA+ population, especially the trans* population, are susceptible? It is important to emphasize that: yes, the approval of equal marriage is an important agenda, however, this and some other agendas are used by neoliberal regimes to erase the experiences and urgencies of subjects who are as far as possible from the definition of good homos.

We know that community equality guidelines, such as equal marriage, are important for general recognition of the love and life experiences of same-sex and/or gender couples, however, this debate ends up being used as the main front in several debate circles queer — circles that often, despite claiming to be LGBTQIA+, are dominated by a majority of LGs and with the intersection of class and race that displace these subjects, even if partially, from the zones of imminent danger. When these guidelines are taken by queer subjects as the main urgency of the group, intragroup epistemic violence is given (in addition to the already known ones outside the group), violence that places the subjects most commonly subject to attacks in a redoubled danger.

In this way, the debate raised by Bourcier (2020) shows us that the existence of a queer epistemology is possible, however, this cannot be based on LG subjects who submit to the heterocentric narratives of the neoliberal model without putting the life of their peers. How can we then review the constructions of knowledge and dissemination of practices within the current scenario? With Bourcier (2020) we have the first tip. “As long as textbooks […] are made by heterosexual or cisgender people, we will lose the critical and destabilizing potential of gender, queer, trans studies and transfeminism, and trans* will be treated as a “population” dirt on the influence of sexual social relations or as pawn actors in controversies. […] It is useless to say that this negative, top-down epistemology has nothing to do with feminist studies, queer studies, gender studies, and gender fucking. (BOURCIER, 2020, p. 96)”.

Bouricer (2020) tells us about the impossibility of maintaining the queer epistemological potential in a space of academic production dominated by heterosexuals or cisgender people, however, we believe that this idea can be expanded beyond books and just hetero-cis subjects. Since textbooks, incorporated praxis and spaces of power are dominated by heterosexual, cisgender, good homos and allied with neoliberal values ​​of life, it is not possible to talk about queer epistemology, and even if performance, the body, and the collective is not considered as the center in all these spheres, neither is this understanding of queer epistemology possible. Queer praxis must be spherical, following Sloterdijk’s (2016) idea of ​​Spheres, where human exchanges and learning circularly take place — as opposed to a linear sense that is perpetrated by neoliberalism.

The idea of ​​circular exchanges and the bodily turn as an epistemological practice is present in several emerging debate spaces, such as in Dravet (2016) where we can understand the relation between the spin of the pombagira and communication. Dravet (2016) brings us the turn as an action of re-turn, re-turn, a turn in oneself, a non-acceptance of the situation, the complete revolution of returning as oneself, the first movement to break the status quo and inertia. This idea of ​​spins is the third element to be considered for an ethical and fair queer epistemology, in addition to the body as the center and the collective as a means, the spin as a departure. “The spin blurs the contours, blurs the borders. By turning on itself countless times, the object becomes a circle, with undefined contours, colors mix, borders interpenetrate, the describable reality approaches and presents itself as an inapprehensible reality: mind and matter become one. The mental thing, the word it designates, the assigned meaning, the meaning that emanates finds, and dissolves in the material thing that is no longer defined by its shape, its colors, and its outline, nor by any of its material attributes. (DRAVET, 2016, p. 101)”.

Thus, by incorporating this idea of ​​the turn, which Dravet (2016) builds from the feminine and the pombagira, to a queer perspective of epistemology, we show that: it is not possible to talk about a queer epistemological praxis without considering the dissolution of borders and the junction between mind and matter — both points vehemently opposed by neoliberalism and by the hetero-centric academy. For a queer epistemology, boundaries, especially those between those who research and those who are researched, must cease to exist; circularity must take over. Bourcier (2020) shows us how this negative (neoliberal) epistemology works by supporting the strengthening of this frontier of distance: "It authorizes a kind of benevolence or a good conscience on the researcher’s side and victimization or vulnerability on the “investigated” side, because that’s the term that’s still used. This negative epistemology based on top/bottom logic has nothing to do with minority cultural studies, queer approaches, their specific interdisciplinarity, and their reflection on the body, including the researcher’s body. (BOURCIER, 2020, p. 99)".

In this way, we arrive at the final ideas of this essay: queer epistemology must be started with a turn, to break with neoliberal ideals and hetero-centric academy, must be made from the collective, thinking everyone as equal peers in the process, and, above all, it must have the body as a space of resistance. Only after these initial steps are considered and outlined, can we begin to talk about queer epistemology.