Caribbean Queer: Desire, dissidence and the constructions of literary subjectivity.

In the Anglophone Caribbean the question of same-sex loving is socially explosive. Consequently, there has been a focus in both academic and activist work on contesting homophobia. Such a project has an urgency that must not be denied given that the buggery laws remain widely intact and every day stories of harassment, violence and fear are reported. Indeed, Faith Smith asserts that 'the taboo of homosexuality would seem to define the present moment in the region' in her 2011 collection of essays Sex and the Citizen (2011b: 6). However, it is my perception that unless there is a more thoroughgoing challenge to what is knowable and livable in terms of sexual lives then decriminalizing homosexuality and extending sexual citizenship to LGBT peoples will not be sufficiently transformative.

As a literary critic what strikes me is how a whole range of Caribbean writers repeatedly represent queer possibilities and suggest a much more flexible understanding of what is sexually and amorously available for description. In the face of continual assumptions about the impossibility of non-heteronormative lives, my project highlights stories of sexual relations, encounters and behaviours that do not necessarily correspond to the dominant framework of 'gay liberation' but that nevertheless collectively assert the realities of queer Caribbean lives. My monograph, Caribbean Queer: Desire, dissidence and literary constructions of Caribbean subjectivity, will make an original intervention in the field of Caribbean sexuality studies by contesting heteronormativity, rather than contesting homophobia.

Because the persuasiveness of my argument lies in revealing the persistent literary disruption of sexual normativities, my book examines early works alongside contemporary ones, works that have been critically acclaimed alongside those that have received almost no attention; works by so-called LGBT writers and so-called straight writers; works that clearly articulate a guiding preoccupation with questions of sexual identification and those in which the words gay, homosexual or queer are never mentioned but which nevertheless represent the social density of Caribbean queer lives. What emerges from reading all these different works alongside each other is their collective capacity to undo the sufficiency of our inherited but invented categories of sexual description, mainly queering heterosexuality but also perhaps asking us to pause before we invest further in homosexuality and a schema of stable binaries. This work will help to shape more creative thinking among new and early career researchers as it empowers them to think in much more expansive and pliant ways. Taking these observations into conversation with other researchers in the UK and the Anglophone Caribbean, as well as with groups advocating for LGBT rights, will enable a fruitful and challenging dialogue to emerge in which the question of traditions and translations of cultural meaning will need to be addressed very directly. Public engagement with these issues is also vital and the project will use literature as a tool for opening up questions of sexual categorisation and understanding.

The fact that Caribbean sexualities is a subject of heated exchange among the media, political arenas, healthcare providers and the church, as well as the general public, means that the potential non-academic beneficiaries of this fellowship are remarkably diverse and likely to be significant in numbers.

One of the central objectives of the fellowship is to communicate the world of diverse and unruly sexual identities and imaginings as it is described in Caribbean literary works within a more general conversation about how people have been defined historically and how these definitions and understandings may need to be revised in order to give due weight and affirmation to non-heteronormative people and communities who have been excluded and stigmatized. The public-facing elements of this conversation will generate public engagement with academic research as well as with a heated and urgent societal issue. The panel discussions allow for very direct engagement and conversation between different stakeholders that will be filmed for open access via the International Resource Network. The literary readings exploit the empathetic capacity that literature evokes as a tool for bridging difference and opening up new possibilities for representing and receiving ideas around sexuality. In this way, the project contributes to the cultural enrichment of all its participants.

My work during this fellowship aims to contest narrow and exclusionary ideas of Caribbean sexual normativities and to foster visibility of a diversity of voices and perspectives on this issue. In this way it aims to create the conditions for a more equal, just and positive social fabric in the Caribbean and the diaspora and therefore is beneficial to the health and culture of these locations. The collective and collaborative aspects of the fellowship aim to foster a transformative understanding of sexual diversity that makes exclusion seem unwarranted and therefore have the potential to improve social cohesion.