{"title":"Quiet politics: Queer organizing in corporate Singapore","authors":"Minwoo Jung","doi":"10.1177/00380261221104386","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p>How could queer activism for social change be possible in an authoritarian but neoliberal environment? What does neoliberalism imply for queer struggles in non-Western contexts where liberal democracy is absent or non-existent? This article introduces the concept of ‘quiet politics’ to establish a new theoretical lens for understanding queer organizing under global capitalism. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork and interview data on the rise of corporate diversity activism in Singapore, it analyzes how queer employees navigate the contradictions of neoliberal capitalism in multinational corporations. The concept of quiet politics helps us understand the nuanced ways in which queer subjects ‘quietly’ mobilize themselves through a negotiation of neoliberalism, queer politics, and the authoritarian government that persecutes homosexuality. In doing so, this article challenges the Western notion of queer liberalism and sheds new light on the complex entanglement of neoliberal capitalism, corporate diversity, contentious politics, and queer activism from a global perspective.</p>","PeriodicalId":48250,"journal":{"name":"Sociological Review","volume":"77 8","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.1000,"publicationDate":"2022-06-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"2","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Sociological Review","FirstCategoryId":"90","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00380261221104386","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"SOCIOLOGY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 2
Abstract
How could queer activism for social change be possible in an authoritarian but neoliberal environment? What does neoliberalism imply for queer struggles in non-Western contexts where liberal democracy is absent or non-existent? This article introduces the concept of ‘quiet politics’ to establish a new theoretical lens for understanding queer organizing under global capitalism. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork and interview data on the rise of corporate diversity activism in Singapore, it analyzes how queer employees navigate the contradictions of neoliberal capitalism in multinational corporations. The concept of quiet politics helps us understand the nuanced ways in which queer subjects ‘quietly’ mobilize themselves through a negotiation of neoliberalism, queer politics, and the authoritarian government that persecutes homosexuality. In doing so, this article challenges the Western notion of queer liberalism and sheds new light on the complex entanglement of neoliberal capitalism, corporate diversity, contentious politics, and queer activism from a global perspective.
期刊介绍:
The Sociological Review has been publishing high quality and innovative articles for over 100 years. During this time we have steadfastly remained a general sociological journal, selecting papers of immediate and lasting significance. Covering all branches of the discipline, including criminology, education, gender, medicine, and organization, our tradition extends to research that is anthropological or philosophical in orientation and analytical or ethnographic in approach. We focus on questions that shape the nature and scope of sociology as well as those that address the changing forms and impact of social relations. In saying this we are not soliciting papers that seek to prescribe methods or dictate perspectives for the discipline. In opening up frontiers and publishing leading-edge research, we see these heterodox issues being settled and unsettled over time by virtue of contributors keeping the debates that occupy sociologists vital and relevant.