Q

Summary

Queer policy analysis

Queer policy analysis comes from queer theory, which itself draws on diverse intellectual and activist strands, not all of which are internally coherent. This might not matter; queer theory's principal definitional criterion is that normative definitions are to be resisted and problematised, including its own, and so ambiguity is a central feature. The field's semantic adoption of ‘queering’ to complement ‘queer theory’ reflects and results from the conceptual instability of the noun form. Using ‘queer’ as a verb foregrounds a particular disposition that produces oppositional, subversive and/or liberatory actions. In this entry, attention is drawn to some of the major ways in which queering has been operationalised in thinking about and practising education research and policy. These strands are considered alongside their conceptual antecedents and contributors, as well as the consequent implications for policy.

In an interview, Connell (Rasmussen et al, 2014) provides a ‘capsule definition’ (p 340) of queer theory that may usefully be unpacked and developed:

[B]y queer theory I understand an approach, originating from lesbian and gay intellectuals, that deconstructs the binaries within which ‘lesbian’ and ‘gay’ themselves were defined; that sees gender as performatively produced, not the expression of a fixed reality or essence; that sees conventional gender as heteronormative, not just patriarchal; that understands consciousness and identity through analysis of subjectification within discourse. (Rasmussen et al, 2014, p 340)

First, therefore, queer theory problematises binaries. Here, it reveals its activist foundations in the lesbian and gay movement which contained the first such binaries to be disrupted. Foucault (1976) argued that turning ‘homosexual’ from an act into an identity was purposively undertaken in order to construct and constrict those so named as objects of power in abjection of the normatively positioned yet fragile heterosexual. Drawing on Foucault's (1976) deconstructionist arguments as well as on Derrida's (Derrida and Houdebine, 1973) insights concerning binary oppositions, queer theory aimed to destabilise the ontological labels of gay, lesbian or straight, as well as to problematise their compulsory association with particular ideas about masculine and feminine (the heteronormative matrix). This strand concerns most obviously identities, particularly relating to sex and sexuality (see, for example, Courtney, 2014), especially in relation to individual experiences and lives.