MA Gender Studies: Thesis and Course Papers by Maya B C de Blank
After the Council for the Administration of Criminal Justice and Protection of Juveniles publishe... more After the Council for the Administration of Criminal Justice and Protection of Juveniles published its policy advice to the Dutch government to stop intercountry adoptions in late 2016, a new movement of adoptees emerged. In this thesis, I turn to queer theory to critically reflect upon this new adoptee movement on a primarily theoretical and conceptual level. Taking a Foucauldian biopolitical framework, I first conceptualize how the Dutch self-perception as a white nation—an imagined genetic community—informs a biopolitical discourse of social belonging based on origin. Based on previous scholarship, I then show how a discourse of neoliberal colour-blindness comes to facilitate the dynamics of this biopolitical discourse of social belonging, deploying mechanisms of assimilation and roots-essentialism. I subsequently apply this conceptual analysis to contemporary Dutch adoptee politics to show how certain activist aims and strategies tie into these normalizing mechanisms of assimilation and roots-essentialism. Then, I turn to the work of David Eng, to demonstrate how his concept of queer diaspora provides an answer to queer liberalism, which is very similar to neoliberal colour-blindness. I take up the psychoanalytical underpinnings of queer diaspora, most notably the concept of racial melancholia, to re-interpret contemporary Dutch adoptee politics. Subsequently, I re-interpret the concept of racial melancholia itself by considering the common conflation of race and ethnicity. I show that such a re-interpretation suggests a strategy that entails building communities to bridge the gap between adoptees of colour and non-adopted people of colour. Finally, I turn to the work of José Esteban Muñoz to show how John McLeod’s concept of adoptive being can be read as a strategy of disidentification, not least because disidentification and adoptive being build on racial melancholia in a similar fashion. I conclude by formulating several brief thoughts on how disidentification constitutes a promising strategy for an adoptee politics that aims to question the racial norms of neoliberal multiculturalism and colour-blindness.
Amidst the re-emergence of xenophobia and racial exclusion in Europe, one particular form of immi... more Amidst the re-emergence of xenophobia and racial exclusion in Europe, one particular form of immigration from outside Europe is still widely accepted: transnational adoption. The lives and experiences of transnational adoptees in Europe are, however, not without any obstacles. In this paper, I will analyze how the lived experiences of transnational adoptees, and in particular adoptees who are also transracially adopted, are heavily influenced by the social and political structures of neoliberalism, political racelessness, and modernity in Northern and Western Europe. I will analyze how this connection is characterized by the forced assimilation of transracial adoptees as people of colour within an overwhelmingly white social environment, how the relatively recent discourse of multiculturalism ties into this, and how this takes away adoptees' political agency as adoptees. To start with, however, I will first briefly discuss the previous research on racialization and sexualization of adoptees of colour and provide an overview of the concepts that I will draw upon in this paper.
BSc Political Science: Theses and Course Papers by Maya B C de Blank
With her proposal called ‘minimal marriage,’ Elizabeth Brake introduces the idea that marriage sh... more With her proposal called ‘minimal marriage,’ Elizabeth Brake introduces the idea that marriage should be available for all caring relationships. On grounds of Rawlsian liberal justice and public reason, she argues that the entry requirements of marriage may not be amatonormative by privileging dyadic and amorous relationships over other types of relationships. The power relations that minimal marriage constitutes have, however, so far not been analyzed. By taking op a Foucauldian conception of discourse and power, I argue that minimal marriage discourse makes caring relationships more salient to a limited extent, but that it also creates new forms of exclusion and that it extends marriage as a method of control. Therefore, minimal marriage does not ontologically oppose traditional marriage, although the former is slightly more liberating than the latter.
Although many men perceive their masculinity to be threatened by feminism, several men explicitly... more Although many men perceive their masculinity to be threatened by feminism, several men explicitly embrace it. Among them are a couple of male politicians. In this thesis, their subversions and reproductions of hegemonic masculinity (the most normative form of masculinity) have been analyzed by understanding hegemonic masculinity and what I will call ‘feminist masculinity’ as discourses. Therefore, a critical discourse analysis has been performed to analyze speeches of Justin Trudeau and Bernie Sanders. The results indicate that these male politicians subvert hegemonic masculinity with feminist masculine discourse that is either embedded in a broader discourse on diversity and social justice, or (to a lesser extent) discourse that centers around feminism explicitly. Furthermore, they also subvert hegemonic masculinity without the use of feminist discourse. However, occasional reproductions of hegemonic masculinity were found as well. Finally, the male politicians that were analyzed do not perform discourse that is explicitly against feminism, although they sometimes risk overestimating their role as feminist allies.
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MA Gender Studies: Thesis and Course Papers by Maya B C de Blank
BSc Political Science: Theses and Course Papers by Maya B C de Blank