Boundaries of Queerness and Queer Mobilisation(s)

About the seminar

In the wake of fights for LGBTQ+ rights across the globe, these rights have assumed new meanings. How LGBTQ+ people are and should be treated has become a deeply racialised boundary marker, internationally and domestically. It has both been used to ascribe “Otherness” in immigration debates across Europe and plays a prominent role in Russia’s ongoing fight against “Gayropa” in Ukraine. In the last decade, Scandinavian contexts have featured populist claims about “threatening Muslim Others” as well as military PR campaigns promising to protect LGBTQ people both at home and abroad. This seminar examines the various ways in which queer struggles and queer lives in Sweden are invoked in deeply racialised and securitised narratives about who is considered a threat, who is portrayed to need protection, and who is assumed to be the provider of that protection, including the increasing presence of “queer defenders”. It thus explores Sweden as a political arena where boundary making around LGBTQ+ rights is both common and contested, drawing on the book Boundaries of Queerness, Bristol University Press 2024) as well as current research on the mobilisation of LGBTQ+ rights in ongoing debates on military and societal preparedness in Sweden.

About Katharina Kehl

Katharina Kehl holds a PhD in peace and development studies and works as an independent researcher and educator. Her research explores the role played by gender, sexuality, and race in nationalist politics of (non-)belonging, focussing on Scandinavian contexts. She is one of the editors-in-chief of lambda nordica. Her work has been published in outlets such as Sexualities and International Feminist Journal Politics, including her recent monograph “Boundaries of queerness – Homonationalism and racial politics in Sweden” (Bristol University Press, 2024).