Quantum Leap1 2.0 or the Western Gaze on Russian homophobia

Adeptus, 2018

2017

This essay analyses the recent focus on Russian human rights violations in Anglophone media, scrutinising the ideological agenda of the visual politics which strategically foreground victimised bodies of Russian dissidents. Notwithstanding the importance of a critique on human rights violations, the article points to the unwanted but very real side effects the current mediatisations of violence have, from structural victimisation and the creation of 'gay martyrs' to the resignification of the West as progressive and 'gay' and Russia as backward and heterosexual. A close reading of popular press photographs of wounded Russian gay youth and the textual context -arguably representative for the Western media focus on the 'Eastern' violation of human rights between 2012 and 2014 -serves to illustrate how an image of Russian nation and Russian state politics is forged within Anglophone media discourses meant to reinforce the positive identity of the self-same by evoking pity, empathy and a responsible helpful attitude toward the endangered othered. The essay argues that Anglophone media's focus on the vulnerability of Russian LGBTIQ+ bodies, consciously or unconsciously, reduces the subjects to this vulnerability, confirming feelings of moral superiority within the enlightened audience. The study highlights the important role that Russia's vulnerable citizens play not only in the construction of values such as 'tolerance' and 'acceptance' and evaluations like 'progressive' and 'modern' , but also in perceptions of the nation and its people and the reaffirmation of the dualistic divide between 'The East' and 'The West' .

Gender, Place & Culture , 2018

In Europe ‘homoemancipation’ has played a significant role in legitimating anti-multiculturalism and broader Islamophobia. Similarly, political homophobia in Russia plays a significant role in (re)defining the contested meaning of the nation after the demise of the Soviet empire. While acknowledging the repressive and violent impact of contemporary anti-LGBT legislation and public discourse on LGBT people, this essay analyzes how the discursive refusal to affirm non-normative sexuality is constitutive of an ethno-national project in post- Soviet Russia. This analysis goes beyond the Cold War binary of east/west that oversimplifies Russian political homophobia as in opposition to Europe. By doing so, it is argued that Russia is not just an illiberal state, but entangled in Eurocentric projects that define national (racialized) boundaries through sexual politics. Consequently, challenging political homophobia in Russia requires attending to intersectional strategies and approaches to sexual politics. An intersectional approach to solidarity will situate sexual rights within national and global ethno-national, racialized, and colonial projects.

Queering Paradigms VII, 2018

In this chapter I analyze the rhetorical tropes and visual language of Russian LGBT activism, focusing on three major historical events and the discourses around them, which were of great importance for the local community: the first open gay and lesbian festival of 1991, the first Russian Gay Pride in 2006 and the controversy around the Sochi Olympics in 2013–2014. I attempt to trace the different Russian discourses, in which the construction of ‘Westernness’ as post-­homophobic progressiveness and unquestioned role model for the global development of LGBT rights is not only passively accepted, but also actively cultivated.

2017

The campaign launched by the Putin Administration since 2012 was aimed at Russia's withdrawal from the Western cultural paradigm. In order to do so the government uses different technics and strategies and political homophobia as a part of it. Russian gays and lesbians have become a target of anti-Russian discourses and practices. Legislative and media attempts have been used to discredit homosexuals and scapegoat them. Media is one of the mechanisms the state uses to form attitudes toward homosexuals. My research discusses historical as well as current political conditions which lead to politics of homophobia. I conduct an experimental survey among students of Russian universities in order to examine how efficient the media homophobic rhetoric is.

Representing Communities: Discourse and Contexts, 2017

This chapter provides an analysis of homophobic discourse in Russia. Contextualised in relation to the Kremlin’s enactment of ‘anti-homopropaganda’ legislations, it examines two Russian news broadcasts, Channel One’s Vremya and Rossiya’s Vesti, and explores the connections between representations of homosexuality and growing prejudice against the LGBTQ community. Khlusova argues that Russian news broadcasts constitute clear examples of homophobic propaganda that achieves two goals: first, it delegitimises the LGBTQ community by perpetuating the heteronormative culture; and second, it promotes queer sexuality as a direct effect of Western influence, which is presented as alien to Russia, thereby defining Russian national identity and setting it apart from its Western Other. Furthermore, the author shows the affinities that exist between the homophobic representations seen in the news broadcasts and the political rhetoric of the Russian government, confirming that the state holds the key to the ideological messages that are mobilised.

Gendering Nationalism: Intersections of Nation, Gender and Sexuality, 2018

In research on political homophobia in Russia, little attention has been devoted to its global political dimensions. This chapter analyzes how dominant narratives of homosexuality are articulated in relation to domestic perceptions of Russia’s international role. Suggesting that political homophobia in Russia must be understood within the larger project of negotiating Russia’s geopolitical identity, I make two specific arguments: firstly, that Russia’s recent (re)turn to “traditional values” is a boundary-making move, delineating Russia from the West and seeking to restore Russia’s place in world politics by positioning the country as a leader in a transnational conservative alliance. This effort must be seen against the background of how sexual politics has emerged as a symbolic battlefield in an imagined clash of civilizations and competing conceptions of modernity. Secondly, at the heart of this geopolitical project is a contradiction which stems from Russia’s historically ambivalent relation to Western modernity. Dominant Russian narratives on homosexuality are undercut by overlapping and contradictory schemas of cultural differentiation, where Russia on the one hand is positioned as a counterhegemonic force opposing Western-imposed gay rights and, on the other hand, as a force of order and civilization in relation to “Muslim homophobia” within Russia’s borders.

2014

"This article focuses on the relations between the two geo-temporal categories of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) and West/Europe, in discussions about sexual politics, homophobia and tolerance, and nationhood. It contributes to the existing literature about homonationalism and sexual nationalisms by introducing CEE to the debate’s geographical loci, so far mostly invested in the West/Europe and its relations to Islam. It argues that is important to consider the CEE in the sexual nationalism debates, because of its framing as the European (homophobic) Other in the emerging discourses of ‘homoinclusive Europe’. The article introduces the concept of leveraged pedagogy, which captures the specificity of the West/Europe - CEE discourses of sexual liberation, advancement and backwardness. Leveraged pedagogy is a hegemonic didactical relation where the CEE figures as an object of the West/European ‘pedagogy’, and is framed as permanently ‘post-communist’, ‘in transition’ (i.e. not liberal, not yet, not enough), and homophobic. Such ‘taking care of’ CEE, it is argues, is a form of cultural hegemony of the Western EUropean liberal model of rights as the universal. Este artículo se centra en las relaciones entre dos categorías geotemporales – Europa Central y Oriental (ECO) y Occidente/Europa – en las discusiones sobre la política sexual, la homofobia, la tolerancia y la nacionalidad. Contribuye a la literatura existente sobre el homonacionalismo y los nacionalismos sexuales al introducir ECO a los sitios geográficos del debate, hasta ahora mayormente invertido en Occidente/Europa y sus relaciones con el Islam. Propone que es importante considerar ECO en los debates de nacionalismo sexual debido a su construcción como el Otro Europeo (homofóbico) en los discursos emergentes de una “Europa homoinclusiva”. El artículo introduce el concepto de pedagogía influida (leveraged pedagogy), el cual captura la especificidad de los discursos de liberación, avance y atraso sexual del Occidente/Europa – ECO. La pedagogía influida es una relación didáctica hegemónica donde la ECO aparece como un objeto de la “pedagogía” del Occidente/Europa, y está enmarcada como permanentemente “post-comunista”, “en transición” (esto es, no liberal, no todavía, no lo suficiente), y homofóbica. Esta manera de “cuidar a” ECO, se argumenta, es una forma de hegemonía del modelo UEuropeo occidental liberal de derechos como el universal. Keywords: Leveraged pedagogy, homonationalism, sexual nationalism, Central and Eastern Europe, West, cultural hegemony, discourse, European Parliament"