AUDIO about SexualityGender posted on March 7, 2012 by glamarchy

RQS Panel: From Missionary Intervention to the Missionary Position (pt I)

Decolonizing Gender & Sexuality

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MONTREAL - Organized by Kama Maureemoootoo as part Radical Queer Semaine 2012 , "this panel aims at providing a decolonizing critique of the contemporary Western political discourses and representations of gender and sexuality in non-Western societies." It took place on Wednesday February 29th from 6-8pm in Centre Sud.

**There is some interference until about 00:55-01:00m -- Sorry!**
 

Speakers and topics:

(00:00-19:35) Taushif Kara’s presentation will frame an analysis of the Queen Boat Trials in Egypt. Critiquing the position of Islamists as “non-Western” and “conservative,” his presentation posits a “gay identity” in Egypt as being itself a transnational product and a Western category that erased (and erases) already-existing forms of same-sex intimacy. In doing so, his presentation disrupts the idea of an Islamist culture as homophobic and instead, looks at how this homophobia emerges from neo-colonial processes from the West.

(19:45-47:44) Kama Maureemootoo’s presentation will examine the rise of homophobia in the Indian subcontinent over the past two decades. Through a discussion of the legal history of the Indian Penal Code (IPC 377), the former anti-sodomy law in India, his presentation will demonstrate how perceptions of masculinity, through the colonial intervention, changed in India, and in turn gave rise to homophobic discourses that still express themselves in the current political climate.
 
Speaker Biographies:

Taushi Kara: currently in his final year at McGill, pursuing a Bachelor of Arts in International Development Studies and Environment. His academic interests focus mainly on the interaction between religion and society. He is also editor of the food section for Leacock’s Online Magazine, and sings in the Soulstice A Cappella choir.

Kama Maureemootoo: presently an independent researcher, an educator and a community organizer whose work centres primarily on the body, gender, sexuality, immigration and anti-racism.

 Unfortunately Edward Ou Jin Lee was unable to attend.