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Global Homophobia, Queer Diplomacy and Conflict

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Queer Diplomacy

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Abstract

This chapter reviews literature on conflict that results from the interface between a Western vision of LGBT rights and the internal politics of non-Western countries. These themes are complex: nationalism, religious extremism, postcolonial constructs of sexuality and state homophobia feed narratives that compound the oppression of LGBT subjects, particularly within the postcolonial context. International LGBT advocacy scholarship analyzes strategies deployed to address some challenging areas of conflict. The violent homophobic campaign that took place in Chechnya in 2017 is presented as an example of how religion, nationalism and Western LGBT identity were weaponized to support a regime facing economic and political crisis. In response to this crisis, a Western multilateral diplomatic coalition crystallized. The chapter concludes by presenting an interdisciplinary theoretical framework to explicate how queer diplomacy has emerged as a tool to navigate conflicts around LGBT rights in the field of international relations.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    In addition to those reviewed in Chapter 1, see also Weeks (2007) and Altman (2001), (2004), and (2008).

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Correspondence to Douglas Victor Janoff .

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Janoff, D.V. (2022). Global Homophobia, Queer Diplomacy and Conflict. In: Queer Diplomacy. Global Queer Politics. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-07341-0_4

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