(In)Security. Queerness in the age of securitization

When gay marriage was legalized in the US, one of the arguments justifying the decision was that marriage fulfilled “yearnings for security […] that express our common humanity”. Inadvertently, this decision queerly echoes research from Queer Theory, in which neoliberal precarization is seen as a mechanism that has turned security into a technology of governing and a focal point of current ways of subjectivation.

For many queers themselves being considered a security risk, a threat to children, to the family, the nation-state, or the reproductive order was and_or is quite a common experience. In racist discourse, on the other hand, the safety of queers has been mobilized against racialized others.

During the last decades, security has turned into a leitmotif of Western societies. Intensified by war on terror discourse, securitization processes portray all kinds of societal issues, such as migration, student protests, poverty, pandemics, houselessness, to name just a few, as security problems, as risks to be managed, and threats to be prevented, most often with the help of technology. In this current technosecurity culture, invocations of threats or dangers justify more and more authoritarian styles of governing.

We’re going to read texts on security and securitization from Queer Theory, from feminist Science & Technology Studies, and critical studies of security, and are going to try to figure out what a queer take on (In)Security could look like.