ecological queer thinking?

Hello!

It has been a while since I have posted. Life has been full, I've been working away - designing odd jobs, setting myself up for the year ahead, growing tomatoes, dealing with anxiety, soaking up the sun, listening to the new Beck, Bjork, Sleater-Kinney and Father John Misty albums (all great by the way).

I was wondering what it would take for me to write another post...

The recent happenings at Auckland Pride. 


What occurred is important in a global context and more important in a national one. I'm not going to attempt to describe it all here, I'd probably just add to a secondary or tertiary misrepresentation (I wasn't there). I feel like my pals comic sums it up.

On a much broader level, I try to identify the problem. The problem space is something I've always grappled with, and never really found a term for. Aspects of sociobiology have helped me visualise the problem space. Linguistically, words which come to mind seem to be framed by the relationship between concepts/ideologies on one end of the spectrum and their 'opposing' force on the other end.

i.e.

inclusion < > exclusion
majority < > minority
in < > out
individual < > community
rich < > poor
and so on.

The 'evolutionary' ideas offered largely by Dawkins, in particular, I think are politically apt at this time for Aeoteroa. For example, the recent 'right' to marry can be seen as a cultural meme within the above problem space. How does this 'gene' affect our .. queer webbing ? how do we react to it as cultural capital? and how does that in turn affect the way we see ourselves? 

Likely, I need to read more queer theory, political stuffs and social theory to find the terminology I am seeking. But it seems that I am not alone in trying to make sense of our shifting. It's almost like the queer community in NZ is a tectonic plate.

I even react to writing 'the queer community of NZ' as there seems to be multiple fractures within the plate itself. This isn't necessarily a bad thing (I don't believe that a 'fracture' is negative) But when 'Pride' take place, and aims to front itself as a unified thing of 'yayness'.. and those fractures aren't recognised/respected/seen allowed then they are gonna rumble.

And rumbling is what we have. I say, thank you!! it seems without this kind of existential/ activist approach to things we wouldn't be pre-empted into even having these conversations or reflections. This kind of  'she'll be right, we're all good' mentality is the type of shit kiwis seem to be quite keen on. It's docile. It's myth supported, it's unrealistic, traditional, deluded and often enforced by those in power - the privileged.

Well fuck that.

Activism is an integral part of our his/hers/trans/tories. It helps move us. It assists our place in this evolutionary organic and complex space.

Dunedin is lucky to have Ryan Conrad visiting, he will be creating discussions around Equality - Liberating the queer political imagination.  You can see the detes of Against Equality on the Facebook page.  Perhaps he will offer some insights into all this. Ryan asks "What is equality? are we seeking to be equal to the way the straight world does things? Why would I seek to be equal to systems, traditions and institutions that historically and presently oppress people? Why would you want to be equal to that?"

There's lots of reasons why, but where do those reasons really come from?

As an organiser of Dunedin Pride, I feel a huge responsibility to create space/s that allow dialectical oppositions - but also feel safe enough. This is a privileged position. We must never forget that this stuff is very personal and emotionally triggering. We must react to and nurture our horrible statistics. As with anything, our space is in constant flux, and growing. Let's build from bottom up, together. So. let's take pride in this - In our work, in our creative selves and all those before and after us.  Viva la queer revolution.