Decolonizing Queer Experience

Reviews / Votes

This edited volume adds to the existing literature on LGBT+ issues in Eastern Europe and Eurasia, and does so within the particular theoretical framing of decolonization. Previous scholarship has placed much emphasis on global movements and "normative" identities without examining the ways these are specifically iterated within local contexts. The inclusion of Central Asia and the Caucasus is particularly welcome given the history of those regions vis-a-vis the Russian Empire and Soviet Union more broadly, within the context of colonization. While this book's nine essays are all grounded in particular field sites and historical events, they move beyond mere description to explore the ways that experience, performance, and identity intersect.... [Readers] with the necessary regional and theoretical background will find much to appreciate. Recommended. * Choice Reviews * The ethnographic and historical essays in this collection beautifully combine queer and decolonial theory to unearth and unpack a variety of forms of queerness in Eastern Europe and Eurasia. From "bad girl" lesbian activists in Kyrgyzstan to "consensual sodomy' in Soviet Latvia back to gender transgression in Kazakh folklore then forward to the contemporary queer pairing of religion and LGBTQ persons in Russia, these essays deepen our understanding of queer lives in a part of the world that is too often constructed as uniformly straight and homo and transphobic. In fact, queers have always managed to live and even thrive in Eastern Europe and Eurasia and will continue to do so. These essays make that clear even as they deepen our understanding of how queer manifests differently in rural versus urban, Soviet or Post-Soviet regimes, and, of course, East vs. West. -- Laurie Essig, Middlebury College By combining a focus on Eastern Europe and Eurasia with an attention to experience, performance, and narrative, this groundbreaking book contributes to our understandings of queer selfhood, community, and belonging. These perspectives broaden our theoretical frameworks and demonstrate the importance of this crucial region that links Europe and Asia. This book is a true achievement that will be valuable across a range of scholarly debates. -- Tom Boellstorff, University of California, Irvine