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# Theorising Decolonial Queerness: Connections, Definitions, Articulations

Sandeep Bakshi

► To cite this version:

Sandeep Bakshi. Theorising Decolonial Queerness: Connections, Definitions, Articulations. Ben Fletcher-Watson, Lesley McAra and Désha Osborne. Essays on Decoloniality: Volume 1, 1, IASH, pp.35-56, 2024, 978-0-9568610-7-8. hal-04519944

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# Theorising Decolonial Queerness: Connections, Definitions, Articulations

Sandeep Bakshi

► To cite this version:

Sandeep Bakshi. Theorising Decolonial Queerness: Connections, Definitions, Articulations. Ben Fletcher-Watson, Lesley McAra and Désha Osborne. Essays on Decoloniality: Volume 1, 1, IASH, pp.35-56, 2024, 978-0-9568610-7-8. hal-04519944

HAL Id: hal-04519944

https://hal.science/hal-04519944v1

Submitted on 25 Mar 2024

HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access
archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci-
entific research documents, whether they are pub-
lished or not. The documents may come from
teaching and research institutions in France or
abroad, or from public or private research centers.

L'archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est
destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents
scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non,
émanant des établissements d'enseignement et de
recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires
publics ou privés.

Public Domain
SANDEEP BAKSHI

# Theorising Decolonial Queerness: Connections, Definitions, Articulations

Who will connect the ideological dots of racism, colonization, capitalism, sexism and heterosexism in ways that our children understand?

(Tamale, 2020, p.9)

The labour in addressing the meaning of decolonising knowledge calls forth an honest and thorough critical appraisal of the standardised canon of knowledge without eliding critical questions of privilege in terms of race, gender, sexuality, and social capital among others. Continuing the theorisation initiated by the collective, Decolonizing Sexualities Network (DSN), with which I have been associated for over a decade, I attempt to theorise and define the parameters of decolonial queerness by defining the field and its key points. Despite a growing body of literature seeking to frame connective strands of decolonial and queer studies and politics (see Jivraj, Bakshi and Posocco, 2020, p.454), demands for disambiguated definitions and articulations of the nascent field of inquiry - i.e., decolonising sexualities - are regular occurrences in academic debates. This essay recapitulates such articulations by providing a genealogy of conversations in disparate geopolitical and disciplinary locations and definitions of terms that have often multiple trajectories and meanings. In so doing, it charts the definitions of decolonial queerness that
SANDEEP BAKSHI

# Theorising Decolonial Queerness: Connections, Definitions, Articulations

Who will connect the ideological dots of racism, colonization, capitalism, sexism and heterosexism in ways that our children understand?

(Tamale, 2020, p.9)

The labour in addressing the meaning of decolonising knowledge calls forth an honest and thorough critical appraisal of the standardised canon of knowledge without eliding critical questions of privilege in terms of race, gender, sexuality, and social capital among others. Continuing the theorisation initiated by the collective, Decolonizing Sexualities Network (DSN), with which I have been associated for over a decade, I attempt to theorise and define the parameters of decolonial queerness by defining the field and its key points. Despite a growing body of literature seeking to frame connective strands of decolonial and queer studies and politics (see Jivraj, Bakshi and Posocco, 2020, p.454), demands for disambiguated definitions and articulations of the nascent field of inquiry - i.e., decolonising sexualities - are regular occurrences in academic debates. This essay recapitulates such articulations by providing a genealogy of conversations in disparate geopolitical and disciplinary locations and definitions of terms that have often multiple trajectories and meanings. In so doing, it charts the definitions of decolonial queerness that
emerge from the conjunctive theorisation of decolonial and queer paradigms as well.

Given the overpopulated discourse in academia on decolonisation and other cognate terminology, this chapter attends explicitly to defining and articulating the connections that ensue from two socially relevant theories that overlap and converge towards notions of transformative politics and justice. In addition, eschewing a separate-sphere approach to the two fields of knowledge making, it gestures towards linking decoloniality to queerness in an attempt to “de-link” from disciplinary rigidity, and argues for a common connective thread. The decolonial perspective, presented as one key aim of this essay, seeks to enact a decolonial critique of transnational queerness by bringing into conversation topics and research areas related to genders and sexualities and racialization politics. In this chapter, a double-pronged approach implicating sexualities, genders, and race in theorisation of decoloniality constitutes a necessary generative paradigm that allows for exercising vigilance apropos of un-/intentional erasures produced in decolonial knowledge and worldmaking.

## Connections

Drawing upon and extending Black queer diasporic and queer of colour critiques’ affirmation of the ‘porous strokes’ between ‘interdisciplinary projects’ pushing forward ‘the work, in different sites and forms’ (Allen, 2012, p.211; p.214), my insistence on ‘connecting’ decolonial scholarship to queer theorisation aims to bring in ‘“unsettled” questions in an ongoing conversation,’ thereby responding to ‘the challenge of these queer times by claiming intellectual kin where we find them’ (Allen, p.215). As Jafari Allen suggests, the connections or what he terms ‘conjunctural moments’ (p.214), Black queer diaspora studies and queer of colour critique in the work of scholars such as E. Patrick Johnson and Roderick Ferguson enacts ‘insurgent rereadings’ (p.212). Borrowing conceptually from these connections, this chapter aspires to offer a re-orientation in unsettling and revising
emerge from the conjunctive theorisation of decolonial and queer paradigms as well.

Given the overpopulated discourse in academia on decolonisation and other cognate terminology, this chapter attends explicitly to defining and articulating the connections that ensue from two socially relevant theories that overlap and converge towards notions of transformative politics and justice. In addition, eschewing a separate-sphere approach to the two fields of knowledge making, it gestures towards linking decoloniality to queerness in an attempt to “de-link” from disciplinary rigidity, and argues for a common connective thread. The decolonial perspective, presented as one key aim of this essay, seeks to enact a decolonial critique of transnational queerness by bringing into conversation topics and research areas related to genders and sexualities and racialization politics. In this chapter, a double-pronged approach implicating sexualities, genders, and race in theorisation of decoloniality constitutes a necessary generative paradigm that allows for exercising vigilance apropos of un-/intentional erasures produced in decolonial knowledge and worldmaking.

## Connections

Drawing upon and extending Black queer diasporic and queer of colour critiques' affirmation of the 'porous strokes' between 'interdisciplinary projects' pushing forward 'the work, in different sites and forms' (Allen, 2012, p.211; p.214), my insistence on 'connecting' decolonial scholarship to queer theorisation aims to bring in ""unsettled"" questions in an ongoing conversation,' thereby responding to 'the challenge of these queer times by claiming intellectual kin where we find them' (Allen, p.215). As Jafari Allen suggests, the connections or what he terms 'conjunctural moments' (p.214), Black queer diaspora studies and queer of colour critique in the work of scholars such as E. Patrick Johnson and Roderick Ferguson enacts 'insurgent rereadings' (p.212). Borrowing conceptually from these connections, this chapter aspires to offer a re-orientation in unsettling and revising
established processes of knowledge-making, subtending a
broader span of transformative politics that accords a multi-site,
multi-temporal ‘epistemic reconstitution’, to borrow from Walter
Mignolo (2021). Such generative possibilities of connected
theorisation do not emerge as novel epistemologies since they
have materialised in disparate disciplinary locations in Black
queer and diaspora research as ‘co-constitutive formations or co-
formations’ (Bacchetta, Jivraj and Bakshi, 2020, p.574).

Extending the proposition of co-productions, I forge connections
between two theoretical frames, decolonial and queer studies,
that disregard, often at their own peril, the parallel demands of
justice and emancipation put forth by each in their own discipline.
In so doing, an outline of conjunctive reading is brought forth into
view, suturing conceptualisation of ‘connected’-ness to decolonial
queerness, such that, “‘new” ideas and practices emerge and take
on added significance precisely because of this articulation’ (Allen,
p.214).

Decolonisation, not exclusively belonging to our shared pasts, ‘is
one of the most misunderstood and caricatured intellectual
movements’ (Ndlovu-Gatsheni, 2018, p.44). Despite signalling
multiple temporalities and valorising ‘human interconnections’ in
contrast to colonial difference of humanity perpetuated across
time through teleological narratives of progress (Ndlovu-Gatsheni,
2018, p.44; cf. Frantz Fanon’s call to humanity of the ‘new man’,
2008, and Sylvia Wynter’s rejection of the ‘biocentric paradigms’
of the ‘Man/Native dichotomy’, 2003, p.329), recent over-
investments in the term “decolonisation” have propelled it to the
status of either a capacious holdall or an unattainable chimera .
Twenty-first century recirculations of the concept ‘connect’ it to
its rootedness in concrete emancipatory land sovereignty
movements (Tuck and Yang, 2012) and as a ‘practice’ of collective
resistance to exploitative capitalist modes of being (Cusicanqui,
2012). If certain global North historians usually deploy
“decolonisation” to signify either the short period of independence
or in the phrase “decolonisation movements”, i.e., freedom
struggle from formal colonial control, the appreciation of
epistemic decolonisation is gradually becoming manifest (see
Duara, 2004). Further, given ‘the broad range of peoples and
established processes of knowledge-making, subtending a
broader span of transformative politics that accords a multi-site,
multi-temporal ‘epistemic reconstitution’, to borrow from Walter
Mignolo (2021). Such generative possibilities of connected
theorisation do not emerge as novel epistemologies since they
have materialised in disparate disciplinary locations in Black
queer and diaspora research as ‘co-constitutive formations or co-
formations’ (Bacchetta, Jivraj and Bakshi, 2020, p.574).

Extending the proposition of co-productions, I forge connections
between two theoretical frames, decolonial and queer studies,
that disregard, often at their own peril, the parallel demands of
justice and emancipation put forth by each in their own discipline.
In so doing, an outline of conjunctive reading is brought forth into
view, suturing conceptualisation of ‘connected’-ness to decolonial
queerness, such that, “‘new” ideas and practices emerge and take
on added significance precisely because of this articulation’ (Allen,
p.214).

Decolonisation, not exclusively belonging to our shared pasts, ‘is
one of the most misunderstood and caricatured intellectual
movements’ (Ndlovu-Gatsheni, 2018, p.44). Despite signalling
multiple temporalities and valorising ‘human interconnections’ in
contrast to colonial difference of humanity perpetuated across
time through teleological narratives of progress (Ndlovu-Gatsheni,
2018, p.44; cf. Frantz Fanon’s call to humanity of the ‘new man’,
2008, and Sylvia Wynter’s rejection of the ‘biocentric paradigms’
of the ‘Man/Native dichotomy’, 2003, p.329), recent over-
investments in the term “decolonisation” have propelled it to the
status of either a capacious holdall or an unattainable chimera.
Twenty-first century recirculations of the concept ‘connect’ it to
its rootedness in concrete emancipatory land sovereignty
movements (Tuck and Yang, 2012) and as a ‘practice’ of collective
resistance to exploitative capitalist modes of being (Cusicanqui,
2012). If certain global North historians usually deploy
“decolonisation” to signify either the short period of independence
or in the phrase “decolonisation movements”, i.e., freedom
struggle from formal colonial control, the appreciation of
epistemic decolonisation is gradually becoming manifest (see
Duara, 2004). Further, given ‘the broad range of peoples and
places that seek to engage with decolonisation', Foluke Adebisi elucidates that "to decolonise" encapsulates a collection of connected activities [...] to fundamentally unseat colonially produced structures of coercive power and technologies of permanent dispossession and dehumanisation that threaten human and planetary survival' (2023, n.p.). Such critical reflections upon connected emancipatory, transformative politics to alter the inter-disciplines catalyse multiple formations of worldmaking in activist mobilisation and academic sites.

The connective thread running across several narratives in disparate geolocations and constituencies is indicative of de-linking from eurocentred knowledge systems, gesturing towards political and cultural emancipation. It instantiates the processes of political emancipation from territorial subjugation of indigenous populations, their right to self-determination from all settler colonialism, from indigenous nations to Palestine and Kashmir amongst other occupations, and the case of reparations that is currently being written in museum studies. Nevertheless, decolonisation movements either for political/economic independence from colonial entities or establishment of national liberation/self-determination offered a principled commitment to emancipation grounded in feminist ethics. Examples of leaders such as B.R. Ambedkar (India), Amílcar Cabral (Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde) and Thomas Sankara (Burkina Faso), to name a few, remind us of the permanent connection between the struggle for formal independence and human rights for all beings. Surely then, within current accounts of decolonisation, critiques of 'multiple hierarchical dimensions of social life (e.g., racial, sexual, gender, economic, political, family, knowledge structures)' have garnered not insufficient attention (Tamale, 2020, p.29; see, for instance, specific critiques from gender and sexuality studies in the work of Anzaldúa, 1987 and Lugones, 2007).

As such, cognitive, economic and political decolonisation as an ongoing process attempts to involve processes of examining our relation to dominant knowledge systems, which inevitably bolster internalised racism, trans/homophobia, (hetero)patriarchy, and anti-Blackness amongst other attributes. Unless our praxes posit
places that seek to engage with decolonisation', Foluke Adebisi elucidates that "to decolonise" encapsulates a collection of connected activities [...] to fundamentally unseat colonially produced structures of coercive power and technologies of permanent dispossession and dehumanisation that threaten human and planetary survival' (2023, n.p.). Such critical reflections upon connected emancipatory, transformative politics to alter the inter-disciplines catalyse multiple formations of worldmaking in activist mobilisation and academic sites.

The connective thread running across several narratives in disparate geolocations and constituencies is indicative of de-linking from eurocentred knowledge systems, gesturing towards political and cultural emancipation. It instantiates the processes of political emancipation from territorial subjugation of indigenous populations, their right to self-determination from all settler colonialism, from indigenous nations to Palestine and Kashmir amongst other occupations, and the case of reparations that is currently being written in museum studies. Nevertheless, decolonisation movements either for political/economic independence from colonial entities or establishment of national liberation/self-determination offered a principled commitment to emancipation grounded in feminist ethics. Examples of leaders such as B.R. Ambedkar (India), Amílcar Cabral (Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde) and Thomas Sankara (Burkina Faso), to name a few, remind us of the permanent connection between the struggle for formal independence and human rights for all beings. Surely then, within current accounts of decolonisation, critiques of 'multiple hierarchical dimensions of social life (e.g., racial, sexual, gender, economic, political, family, knowledge structures)' have garnered not insufficient attention (Tamale, 2020, p.29; see, for instance, specific critiques from gender and sexuality studies in the work of Anzaldúa, 1987 and Lugones, 2007).

As such, cognitive, economic and political decolonisation as an ongoing process attempts to involve processes of examining our relation to dominant knowledge systems, which inevitably bolster internalised racism, trans/homophobia, (hetero)patriarchy, and anti-Blackness amongst other attributes. Unless our praxes posit
themselves contra such devitalising modalities, through human
inter-connectedness, decolonisation remains an elusive enterprise
and risks reproducing un/intentional erasures akin to the
obliterations, substitutions, and occlusions initiated by colonial
systems (Pratt, 2022). The erasures, especially in relation to
women's contributions to decolonisation mobilisation and post-
independence transformation, have been the subject of focus in
Tamale's work vis-à-vis African women's marginalisation in
freedom struggles and post-independent nation-building (2020,
pp.62-63; see also Philippa Levine's essay 'Gendering
Decolonisation', 2010).

One such unintentional erasure constitutes the work of the Nardal
sisters, Paulette and Jane Nardal, in 1920s France, who have only
recently been recognised as precursors of the Négritude
movement. The sisters, especially Paulette Nardal, were central to
the organising of the Clamart literary salons in Paris with African-
American thinkers and established the bilingual French-English
periodical La Revue du Monde Noir in 1931. The exclusion of the
Nardal sisters from the Négritude movement is an extraordinary
oversight given the nuanced discussions on race, gender and
colonialism that regularly featured in the periodical. Paulette
Nardal interrogated the erasure of women from the mobilisation
thus: 'Césaire and Senghor took up the ideas tossed out by us and
expressed them with flash and brio. We were but women, real
pioneers; we blazed the trail for them' (Sharpley-Whiting, 2002,
p.17). Nardal's complaint constitutes one instance of a genealogy
of feminists working in disparate spaces of time to connect racism,
sexuality and gender whose contributions are routinely
peripheralized in our research agendas. Omitting the
contributions of those who fostered demands in anticolonial
movements requires necessary revisions such that if modernity
conceived as originating in the Euro-US global North comprises a
faultline awaiting a necessary corrective, then, in the same vein,
the labour of organisers writing gender, sexuality and race into
decolonisation struggles cannot be edited out. Within
contemporary queer theorisation, Judith Butler's dominant
position within the field, including the vast circulation of their
works in the global South, has primarily resulted in the erasure of
themselves contra such devitalising modalities, through human
inter-connectedness, decolonisation remains an elusive enterprise
and risks reproducing un/intentional erasures akin to the
obliterations, substitutions, and occlusions initiated by colonial
systems (Pratt, 2022). The erasures, especially in relation to
women's contributions to decolonisation mobilisation and post-
independence transformation, have been the subject of focus in
Tamale's work vis-à-vis African women's marginalisation in
freedom struggles and post-independent nation-building (2020,
pp.62-63; see also Philippa Levine's essay 'Gendering
Decolonisation', 2010).

One such unintentional erasure constitutes the work of the Nardal
sisters, Paulette and Jane Nardal, in 1920s France, who have only
recently been recognised as precursors of the Négritude
movement. The sisters, especially Paulette Nardal, were central to
the organising of the Clamart literary salons in Paris with African-
American thinkers and established the bilingual French-English
periodical La Revue du Monde Noir in 1931. The exclusion of the
Nardal sisters from the Négritude movement is an extraordinary
oversight given the nuanced discussions on race, gender and
colonialism that regularly featured in the periodical. Paulette
Nardal interrogated the erasure of women from the mobilisation
thus: 'Césaire and Senghor took up the ideas tossed out by us and
expressed them with flash and brio. We were but women, real
pioneers; we blazed the trail for them' (Sharpley-Whiting, 2002,
p.17). Nardal's complaint constitutes one instance of a genealogy
of feminists working in disparate spaces of time to connect racism,
sexuality and gender whose contributions are routinely
peripheralized in our research agendas. Omitting the
contributions of those who fostered demands in anticolonial
movements requires necessary revisions such that if modernity
conceived as originating in the Euro-US global North comprises a
faultline awaiting a necessary corrective, then, in the same vein,
the labour of organisers writing gender, sexuality and race into
decolonisation struggles cannot be edited out. Within
contemporary queer theorisation, Judith Butler's dominant
position within the field, including the vast circulation of their
works in the global South, has primarily resulted in the erasure of
Oyèrónké Oyěwùmí’s formulation of ‘woman’ as a non-category. Attentive to such redactions, the creation of ‘an “other” episteme [which] characterizes decolonial worldmaking’ requires connecting narratives of decolonisation to ongoing discussions on queerness that excurse beyond gender and sexuality frames to attach to larger transnational conversations of race, queerness, caste, class, disability inter alia (Jivraj, Bakshi and Posocco, 2020, p.453).

Decolonial studies and decolonisation have multiple trajectories. It is imperative to recognise their convergent and divergent genealogies in order to arrive at a nuanced understanding of praxes, movements and politics. Following Fanon's conceptualisation of the *damné* as ‘a subject from whom the capacity to have and to give have been taken away’, Nelson Maldonado-Torres charts the labour of decolonisation in restoring this dignity of the *damné* (2007, p.258). Further, Maldonado-Torres engages decolonial thinking in underscoring the diversity of scholars invested in defining the field, pivoting on articulating understandings of the term ‘coloniality’ nonetheless. Coloniality operates as a legacy of the Euro-colonial worlds in postcolonial times. As Ndlovu-Gatsheni astutely observes, ‘racism, the slave trade, imperialism, colonialism, apartheid, and neo-colonialism do not only constitute global coloniality as a modern power structure but are also manifestations of the ‘dark side/underside’ of modernity’ (2020, p.186). In a similar vein, Jairo I. Fúnez-Flores, Ana Carolina Díaz Beltrán and James Jupp posit the multifarious genealogical and intellectual traditions of decolonial studies as a means to address critiques, including auto-critiques, of decolonial praxes and work (2022). In its quest to achieve cognitive justice and liberation, the ‘field of decolonial studies has allowed the terms “decolonial” and “decolonize” to become academic and activist catchphrases’; however, ‘its multi-route trajectory has enriched peripheral knowledges through their visibilization and dissemination in transnational and transdisciplinary locations’ (Jivraj, Bakshi and Posocco, 2020, p.453). This ‘multi-route’ intellectual genealogy has allowed for a critical expanse to substantialise in the form of connections pertaining to sexuality, gender, race, migration and other social categories of exclusion
Oyèrónké Oyěwùmí’s formulation of ‘woman’ as a non-category. Attentive to such redactions, the creation of ‘an “other” episteme [which] characterizes decolonial worldmaking’ requires connecting narratives of decolonisation to ongoing discussions on queerness that excurse beyond gender and sexuality frames to attach to larger transnational conversations of race, queerness, caste, class, disability inter alia (Jivraj, Bakshi and Posocco, 2020, p.453).

Decolonial studies and decolonisation have multiple trajectories. It is imperative to recognise their convergent and divergent genealogies in order to arrive at a nuanced understanding of praxes, movements and politics. Following Fanon's conceptualisation of the *damné* as 'a subject from whom the capacity to have and to give have been taken away', Nelson Maldonado-Torres charts the labour of decolonisation in restoring this dignity of the *damné* (2007, p.258). Further, Maldonado-Torres engages decolonial thinking in underscoring the diversity of scholars invested in defining the field, pivoting on articulating understandings of the term 'coloniality' nonetheless. Coloniality operates as a legacy of the Euro-colonial worlds in postcolonial times. As Ndlovu-Gatsheni astutely observes, 'racism, the slave trade, imperialism, colonialism, apartheid, and neo-colonialism do not only constitute global coloniality as a modern power structure but are also manifestations of the 'dark side/underside' of modernity' (2020, p.186). In a similar vein, Jairo I. Fúnez-Flores, Ana Carolina Díaz Beltrán and James Jupp posit the multifarious genealogical and intellectual traditions of decolonial studies as a means to address critiques, including auto-critiques, of decolonial praxes and work (2022). In its quest to achieve cognitive justice and liberation, the 'field of decolonial studies has allowed the terms "decolonial" and "decolonize" to become academic and activist catchphrases'; however, 'its multi-route trajectory has enriched peripheral knowledges through their visibilization and dissemination in transnational and transdisciplinary locations' (Jivraj, Bakshi and Posocco, 2020, p.453). This 'multi-route' intellectual genealogy has allowed for a critical expanse to substantialise in the form of connections pertaining to sexuality, gender, race, migration and other social categories of exclusion
inherent in the coloniality of being. Such connections inform the
work of a substantial majority of decolonial scholars who, akin to
early theorisation from Linda Tuhiwai Smith, insist on how theories
about 'research are underpinned by a cultural system of
classification and representation [and] by conceptions of gender
and race' (1999, p.44; see also, Mignolo, 2007, Maldonado-Torres,
2007, and Lugones's critique of Aníbal Quijano's coloniality of
power and inclusion of coloniality of gender, 2007).

Defining a field: Connectors

Race, the ‘floating signifier’ to borrow a term from Stuart Hall (2021), does not appear as an outlier in decolonial studies. Despite the overarching prevalence of the modernity/coloniality frame in decolonial thinking, both Mignolo and Quijano significantly identify race as enmeshed in the fundamental logic of coloniality (Mignolo, 2018), and ‘the most efficient instrument of social domination’ (Quijano, 2007, p.45). Earlier anticolonial thinking, for instance in Aimé Césaire’s writings, from which decolonial thinking evolved, found an equal inter-implication of race and colonialism, such that Césaire and later Fanon reflected upon the position of blackness and African-ness in their works variously. Recent work that has been included within the remit of decolonial theorisation arises from crossings with Black studies and Indigenous theories. Extending the genealogy of Cedric Robinson’s formulation of racial capitalism (1983), Charles Mills’ exegesis of white supremacy as a political system (1997), Aileen Moreton-Robinson’s engagement of race into questions of settler colonial history and indigeneity (2015), and Patrick Wolfe’s reflection on the structures that constructed race as a dominant discourse transnationally (2016), decolonial scholarship attests to the centrality of race that shapes the experiences of indigenous and racialised peoples via the operation of the state, even though they did not produce the history of race. In sum, the proliferation of discussion on race in decolonial theorisation and the racial stratification of the global economy is neither novel nor exclusive to it.
inherent in the coloniality of being. Such connections inform the
work of a substantial majority of decolonial scholars who, akin to
early theorisation from Linda Tuhiwai Smith, insist on how theories
about 'research are underpinned by a cultural system of
classification and representation [and] by conceptions of gender
and race' (1999, p.44; see also, Mignolo, 2007, Maldonado-Torres,
2007, and Lugones's critique of Aníbal Quijano's coloniality of
power and inclusion of coloniality of gender, 2007).

Defining a field: Connectors

Race, the ‘floating signifier’ to borrow a term from Stuart Hall (2021), does not appear as an outlier in decolonial studies. Despite the overarching prevalence of the modernity/coloniality frame in decolonial thinking, both Mignolo and Quijano significantly identify race as enmeshed in the fundamental logic of coloniality (Mignolo, 2018), and ‘the most efficient instrument of social domination’ (Quijano, 2007, p.45). Earlier anticolonial thinking, for instance in Aimé Césaire’s writings, from which decolonial thinking evolved, found an equal inter-implication of race and colonialism, such that Césaire and later Fanon reflected upon the position of blackness and African-ness in their works variously. Recent work that has been included within the remit of decolonial theorisation arises from crossings with Black studies and Indigenous theories. Extending the genealogy of Cedric Robinson’s formulation of racial capitalism (1983), Charles Mills’ exegesis of white supremacy as a political system (1997), Aileen Moreton-Robinson’s engagement of race into questions of settler colonial history and indigeneity (2015), and Patrick Wolfe’s reflection on the structures that constructed race as a dominant discourse transnationally (2016), decolonial scholarship attests to the centrality of race that shapes the experiences of indigenous and racialised peoples via the operation of the state, even though they did not produce the history of race. In sum, the proliferation of discussion on race in decolonial theorisation and the racial stratification of the global economy is neither novel nor exclusive to it.
Processes of racialisation in our contemporary eras, an enduring legacy of colonialism, operationalise as a ‘technology for the management of human difference, the main goal of which is the production, reproduction, and maintenance of white supremacy on both a local and a planetary scale’ (Lentin, 2020, p.5). In her recent research on understanding race and racialisation in the early modern period, Noémie Ndiaye connects racial difference and hierarchy across temporal distinctions of the past and present through an invocation of intertwining global frames of colonisation, such that, racial categorisation ‘was a transnational European endeavor’ (2022, pp.8-16; p.10). The connection between decolonial theorisation, race and queerness further visibilises when considered in a parallel frame with another analytic of ‘human difference’, i.e., queer of colour critique. Addressing the ‘founding limitation’ within canonical queer studies, queer of colour critique orientates ‘analyses of sexuality toward critiques of race and political economy’ by disambiguating the initial ambivalence within queer studies about the ‘connections that sexuality has to other modes of difference’ (Ferguson, 2018). Akin to Black feminist conceptualisations of the racialised politics of gender and sexuality, it engages queer analyses into terrains of racial capitalism, transnational queer critiques of hegemonic global North queerness and queerness as archival method, amongst other extensions. In other words, it provides tools for critically analysing sociocultural factors such as race, sexuality, capitalism, class, migration and other variables as an inherent part of queer studies.

Borrowing from feminist, queer, and race studies, queer of colour critique functions as a connecting strand in the geopolitics of knowledge formation. It forefronts the gender/sexuality/race/caste/colonialism nexus, eschewing the idea that they belong to the academic peripheries. The elision of such an inter-relationship renders deficient analyses of social and political epistemologies in multiple academic disciplines and civil-society activism. As Roderick Ferguson suggests, ‘queer of color analysis presumes that liberal ideology occludes the intersecting saliency of race, gender, sexuality, and class in forming social practices’, and ‘attempts to disturb the idea that racial and national formations
Processes of racialisation in our contemporary eras, an enduring legacy of colonialism, operationalise as a ‘technology for the management of human difference, the main goal of which is the production, reproduction, and maintenance of white supremacy on both a local and a planetary scale’ (Lentin, 2020, p.5). In her recent research on understanding race and racialisation in the early modern period, Noémie Ndiaye connects racial difference and hierarchy across temporal distinctions of the past and present through an invocation of intertwining global frames of colonisation, such that, racial categorisation ‘was a transnational European endeavor’ (2022, pp.8-16; p.10). The connection between decolonial theorisation, race and queerness further visibilises when considered in a parallel frame with another analytic of ‘human difference’, i.e., queer of colour critique. Addressing the ‘founding limitation’ within canonical queer studies, queer of colour critique orientates ‘analyses of sexuality toward critiques of race and political economy’ by disambiguating the initial ambivalence within queer studies about the ‘connections that sexuality has to other modes of difference’ (Ferguson, 2018). Akin to Black feminist conceptualisations of the racialised politics of gender and sexuality, it engages queer analyses into terrains of racial capitalism, transnational queer critiques of hegemonic global North queerness and queerness as archival method, amongst other extensions. In other words, it provides tools for critically analysing sociocultural factors such as race, sexuality, capitalism, class, migration and other variables as an inherent part of queer studies.

Borrowing from feminist, queer, and race studies, queer of colour critique functions as a connecting strand in the geopolitics of knowledge formation. It forefronts the gender/sexuality/race/caste/colonialism nexus, eschewing the idea that they belong to the academic peripheries. The elision of such an inter-relationship renders deficient analyses of social and political epistemologies in multiple academic disciplines and civil-society activism. As Roderick Ferguson suggests, ‘queer of color analysis presumes that liberal ideology occludes the intersecting saliency of race, gender, sexuality, and class in forming social practices’, and ‘attempts to disturb the idea that racial and national formations
are obviously disconnected' (Ferguson, 2003, p.4). As such, queer
of colour critique places processes of racialisation and their
negative structural bonds at the core of imagining futures that
travel beyond standard, desensitised analyses of gender and
sexuality.

Akin to queer of colour articulations, Black diasporic queer studies
have forged connections activist and academic formulations of
Blackness and queer theorisations, incorporating literary and
performance studies which appear as fertile sites of excavation of
the pasts and projection of collective and connected futures.
Introducing 'dramatic instabilities' in politically investing the
category of queerness, Rinaldo Walcott re-envisions a/the queer
framework as infused by a 'politics of reconnection and
reparation' attending to Black livability in the face of Black death
(2016, p.14; p.26). The central concern remains the desire for
justice and freedom for such a politics to emerge. Borrowing from
Édouard Glissant's formulation of natural poetics, Walcott
proposes Black queer articulation as 'a homopoetics of relation',
which produces 'modes of being that are both in concert with and
against hegemonic gay and lesbian identities, homonormative
inclusion, and Black homophobia' (p. 197). In this regard, queerness
as a mode of identity undergoes a 'shift' to emerge as a politics,
an ethics even, to counter the 'limited vocabularies and literacies'
of current queer thinking by connecting to and demanding 'a
freedom not yet felt, but one genuinely yearned for' (p.208;
p.210). In sum, queer of colour critique and Black diasporic queer
studies foreground the inveterate connections of sexuality and
gender to other modes of difference, broadening the scope of
queer studies and in the process clearing space for the emergence
of decolonial queerness as analytic through referencing Fanonian
and Wynterian new human possibilities of embodiment based on
freedom and justice.

Articulations: Planetary Connectedness

Organising around the rubric of queer of colour space-making,
Paola Bacchetta et al (2018) explicitly connect the various strands
are obviously disconnected' (Ferguson, 2003, p.4). As such, queer
of colour critique places processes of racialisation and their
negative structural bonds at the core of imagining futures that
travel beyond standard, desensitised analyses of gender and
sexuality.

Akin to queer of colour articulations, Black diasporic queer studies
have forged connections activist and academic formulations of
Blackness and queer theorisations, incorporating literary and
performance studies which appear as fertile sites of excavation of
the pasts and projection of collective and connected futures.
Introducing 'dramatic instabilities' in politically investing the
category of queerness, Rinaldo Walcott re-envisions a/the queer
framework as infused by a 'politics of reconnection and
reparation' attending to Black livability in the face of Black death
(2016, p.14; p.26). The central concern remains the desire for
justice and freedom for such a politics to emerge. Borrowing from
Édouard Glissant's formulation of natural poetics, Walcott
proposes Black queer articulation as 'a homopoetics of relation',
which produces 'modes of being that are both in concert with and
against hegemonic gay and lesbian identities, homonormative
inclusion, and Black homophobia' (p. 197). In this regard, queerness
as a mode of identity undergoes a 'shift' to emerge as a politics,
an ethics even, to counter the 'limited vocabularies and literacies'
of current queer thinking by connecting to and demanding 'a
freedom not yet felt, but one genuinely yearned for' (p.208;
p.210). In sum, queer of colour critique and Black diasporic queer
studies foreground the inveterate connections of sexuality and
gender to other modes of difference, broadening the scope of
queer studies and in the process clearing space for the emergence
of decolonial queerness as analytic through referencing Fanonian
and Wynterian new human possibilities of embodiment based on
freedom and justice.

Articulations: Planetary Connectedness

Organising around the rubric of queer of colour space-making,
Paola Bacchetta et al (2018) explicitly connect the various strands
of knowledge-making manifest in theorising conjunctively. They
contend that such enactments incorporate,

queer of color spaces, including spatial segregation;
gentrification; queer of color performance; trans of
color politics; travels and translations; theorizing
activism; social movements; anti-Blackness;
Islamophobia; racisms and racialization; decoloniality;
violence; carceral and border regimes; historiography
and archives; queer family making and the state; and
creative practices including film, visual art, dance,
and creative writing. (Bacchetta et al, 2018, p.44)

Noting the myriad thematisations in the preceding citation, it is evident that connections between gender, sexuality, race and nation are embedded in longstanding histories of epistemic and social exclusion, inherited from various colonial expansions, including current settler occupations. Further, the articulation of decolonial theorising of queerness (“decolonial queerness”) emanates in the interstitial dialogue between queer and trans of colour activism, activism scholarship, queer and decolonial studies. Within academic institutional sites, it potentialises as strategies to make, share and hold space such that academics ‘resist becoming fly-in academics who dismiss antiracist and anticolonial struggles locally and exclusively orient ourselves to the white institution that invites us and pays for our flight’ (Bacchetta et al, 2018, p.53). Such critical reflections that connect our multiple positionalities and situational privilege to building a coalitional space of thinking along axes of exclusion and human subjugation appear as one of the key imports in the crossing of decolonial and queer theorisations.

Decolonial queerness departs from standard accounts of queerness to bring into focus ways of being – both knowledge making and worldmaking – that do not solely attach to gender and sexuality formations and critiques. Labouring through normative articulation of queerness, established through hegemonic global North control of what constitutes queer(-ness), such as the primacy of coming-out narratives (as one example), it attaches itself to ‘undoing’ received understandings of genders
of knowledge-making manifest in theorising conjunctively. They
contend that such enactments incorporate,

queer of color spaces, including spatial segregation;
gentrification; queer of color performance; trans of
color politics; travels and translations; theorizing
activism; social movements; anti-Blackness;
Islamophobia; racisms and racialization; decoloniality;
violence; carceral and border regimes; historiography
and archives; queer family making and the state; and
creative practices including film, visual art, dance,
and creative writing. (Bacchetta et al, 2018, p.44)

Noting the myriad thematisations in the preceding citation, it is
evident that connections between gender, sexuality, race and
nation are embedded in longstanding histories of epistemic and
social exclusion, inherited from various colonial expansions,
including current settler occupations. Further, the articulation of
decolonial theorising of queerness (“decolonial queerness”)
emanates in the interstitial dialogue between queer and trans of
colour activism, activism scholarship, queer and decolonial studies.
Within academic institutional sites, it potentialises as strategies to
make, share and hold space such that academics ‘resist becoming
fly-in academics who dismiss antiracist and anticolonial struggles
locally and exclusively orient ourselves to the white institution
that invites us and pays for our flight’ (Bacchetta et al, 2018, p.53).
Such critical reflections that connect our multiple positionalities
and situational privilege to building a coalitional space of thinking
along axes of exclusion and human subjugation appear as one of
the key imports in the crossing of decolonial and queer
theorisations.

Decolonial queerness departs from standard accounts of
queerness to bring into focus ways of being – both knowledge
making and worldmaking – that do not solely attach to gender
and sexuality formations and critiques. Labouring through
normative articulation of queerness, established through
hegemonic global North control of what constitutes queer(-ness),
such as the primacy of coming-out narratives (as one example), it
attaches itself to ‘undoing’ received understandings of genders
and sexualities. As such, similar to the decolonial option as in the prefix 'de', it 'has a sense of undoing, and undoing also opens a space for a different kind of doing' (Bacchetta and Maese-Cohen, 2010, p.181). In this sense, it commits to undoing 'all relations of power, and is tied up with every dimension of the most subaltern of queer and non-queer life, of humans, all beings-becoming and the planet' (Bacchetta, Jivraj and Bakshi, 2020, p.575; emphasis in original). Pointing to the systematic exclusion of non-western, non-white manifestations of queerness as lying outside the purview of queerness itself, such that, the teleological narrative of first-in-the-west and then-the-rest becomes normalised, decolonial queerness is articulated through sustained reliance on decolonial thinking of modernity/coloniality whereby critiques of eurocentred pride (homonationalist exclusions of non-citizens in the geopolitical west) and same-sex marriage and homo-parenting as the ultimate goal for queer mobilisation transnationally become available.

Attempting to decolonise queerness crosses the circumscribed boundaries of gender and sexuality discussions since several social categories of class, race, technologies of (bio)power, caste, and all humanity suffer colonially produced differentiation. The garment workers' conditions in the global South inflected by caste and/or class or the characteristic racialisation of low-paid employment in the global North outline the requirement to consider queerness as one attribute in the struggle against all forms of oppressive structures. Queerness, in this scheme, coalesces with justice and liberation movements, shifting beyond routine and tired calls to equality and representation. The mobilisation against transphobia and homophobia appears in an integral relation to emancipatory organisation. In her pathbreaking contribution to queer legal studies, Tamale offers an assessment of the Fallist movements and earlier Pan-African mobilisation. Decolonisation when considered in relation to such contexts of protesting oppressive structures fails its promise of liberation when not implicating into its frame questions of genders, sexualities, poverty and disabilities among other marginalisations (Tamale, 2020, pp.62-64). Following Tamale, I would propose that the elision of trans and queer frames within social justice movements produces a
and sexualities. As such, similar to the decolonial option as in the prefix 'de', it 'has a sense of undoing, and undoing also opens a space for a different kind of doing' (Bacchetta and Maese-Cohen, 2010, p.181). In this sense, it commits to undoing 'all relations of power, and is tied up with every dimension of the most subaltern of queer and non-queer life, of humans, all beings-becoming and the planet' (Bacchetta, Jivraj and Bakshi, 2020, p.575; emphasis in original). Pointing to the systematic exclusion of non-western, non-white manifestations of queerness as lying outside the purview of queerness itself, such that, the teleological narrative of first-in-the-west and then-the-rest becomes normalised, decolonial queerness is articulated through sustained reliance on decolonial thinking of modernity/coloniality whereby critiques of eurocentred pride (homonationalist exclusions of non-citizens in the geopolitical west) and same-sex marriage and homo-parenting as the ultimate goal for queer mobilisation transnationally become available.

Attempting to decolonise queerness crosses the circumscribed boundaries of gender and sexuality discussions since several social categories of class, race, technologies of (bio)power, caste, and all humanity suffer colonially produced differentiation. The garment workers' conditions in the global South inflected by caste and/or class or the characteristic racialisation of low-paid employment in the global North outline the requirement to consider queerness as one attribute in the struggle against all forms of oppressive structures. Queerness, in this scheme, coalesces with justice and liberation movements, shifting beyond routine and tired calls to equality and representation. The mobilisation against transphobia and homophobia appears in an integral relation to emancipatory organisation. In her pathbreaking contribution to queer legal studies, Tamale offers an assessment of the Fallist movements and earlier Pan-African mobilisation. Decolonisation when considered in relation to such contexts of protesting oppressive structures fails its promise of liberation when not implicating into its frame questions of genders, sexualities, poverty and disabilities among other marginalisations (Tamale, 2020, pp.62-64). Following Tamale, I would propose that the elision of trans and queer frames within social justice movements produces a
significant oversight, authorising exclusions, and in the process,
becoming grave impediments to collective emancipation
besetting aspirations of these movements. Emancipation or
liberation, therefore, of all planetary human/non-human forms is
one key tenet of decolonial queerness. It is how queerness inserts
itself in narratives of decolonial theorisation and conducts
'connected activities', to borrow from Adebisi (2023).

Queer and trans people of colour inhabiting various regions in the geopolitical west as diasporic subjects appear marginal to thinking of queer politics because of enduring and embedded histories of making borders normative - not just geopolitical borders, but epistemic borders as well. Given the multifarious genealogies of queerness transnationally, a hegemonic formation of queerness, almost normative queerness, has emerged in the global north(s) that arrogates to itself the idea of queer rights and emancipation of queer and trans peoples. Decolonial queerness, extending queer of colour critique, signals not only the immediacy of the need to factor in formations of race, immigration, diasporas and other instances of exclusion, but also, instructs queer analyses to emplace dominant queerness in global processes of control and territorial aggrandisement, which is to say, how queerness in certain instances can be deployed in the service of heteronormative or nationalist politics or discourses of modernity/coloniality. As Bacchetta outlines, 'there is a uni-directionality and unevenness of ideological flows from the global North(s) to the global South(s)' (2020, p.576). However, Bacchetta continues, 'These theories often make sense to a certain relatively dominant sector of feminists and queers in the global South(s) because like their relatively dominant global northern counterparts they do not necessarily consider the most subaltern conditions and subjects' (2020, p.576). Decolonial queerness attends to such complicities in circulations of power in both the North(s) and South(s). In this regard, it sutures to all notions of justice, be they restorative, reparative or transformative and its attributes.

The example of same-sex marriage and the human rights frame
continues to generate discussions in the geopolitical west and in
significant oversight, authorising exclusions, and in the process,
becoming grave impediments to collective emancipation
besetting aspirations of these movements. Emancipation or
liberation, therefore, of all planetary human/non-human forms is
one key tenet of decolonial queerness. It is how queerness inserts
itself in narratives of decolonial theorisation and conducts
'connected activities', to borrow from Adebisi (2023).

Queer and trans people of colour inhabiting various regions in the geopolitical west as diasporic subjects appear marginal to thinking of queer politics because of enduring and embedded histories of making borders normative - not just geopolitical borders, but epistemic borders as well. Given the multifarious genealogies of queerness transnationally, a hegemonic formation of queerness, almost normative queerness, has emerged in the global north(s) that arrogates to itself the idea of queer rights and emancipation of queer and trans peoples. Decolonial queerness, extending queer of colour critique, signals not only the immediacy of the need to factor in formations of race, immigration, diasporas and other instances of exclusion, but also, instructs queer analyses to emplace dominant queerness in global processes of control and territorial aggrandisement, which is to say, how queerness in certain instances can be deployed in the service of heteronormative or nationalist politics or discourses of modernity/coloniality. As Bacchetta outlines, 'there is a uni-directionality and unevenness of ideological flows from the global North(s) to the global South(s)' (2020, p.576). However, Bacchetta continues, 'These theories often make sense to a certain relatively dominant sector of feminists and queers in the global South(s) because like their relatively dominant global northern counterparts they do not necessarily consider the most subaltern conditions and subjects' (2020, p.576). Decolonial queerness attends to such complicities in circulations of power in both the North(s) and South(s). In this regard, it sutures to all notions of justice, be they restorative, reparative or transformative and its attributes.

The example of same-sex marriage and the human rights frame
continues to generate discussions in the geopolitical west and in
the global South(s) where countries have recently decriminalised homosexual acts (e.g., current debates on same-sex marriage in India). Human rights do not constitute a proprietary domain of the geopolitical west, even though it claims this frame for itself. The over-emphasis on equal rights, same-sex marriage and adoption/homoparenting in mainstream queer movements has mainly become an instantiation of a teleological narrative of progress, attributing to the west the advantage of claiming a moral high ground. The deployment of decolonial queerness in this context functions as an analytic - an analytic that describes the events and conditions regimenting queer politics. The current export of homophobia via the Christian church in countries such as Uganda, for instance, energises hostilities against queer and transgender people with adverse ramifications for local organisations on the ground. The analytic goes beyond a simple observation-description-critique by departing from these narratives not as an attempt to undermine discourses on equality. Instead, it brings into focus movements for socio-economic justice that are often co-tangent to political demands of same-sex equality but are part of a wider network of decolonial resistance, globally. Decolonial queerness constitutes then in its deployment as a strategy of resistance to the harnessing of queer and transgender subjects in the dynamics of power hierarchies, all hierarchies.

The plurality of planetary existence invites us to rethink the North/South binary as a useful categorisation. However, both geopolitical locations contain multiply divided socio-political constituencies whose classification necessitates careful qualifications. There are pockets of the global North (affluent classes, gated communities) in the global South and vice versa (inner-city poverty). Plural ways of being and becoming define the multiplicity of ways of resistance and control. Since there are several Norths and Souths, it is imperative to note that decolonial queerness does not constitute a singular strategy or tool. It is a set of practices and, in this sense, it might be significant to phrase it 'decolonial queernesses'. As the Decolonizing Sexualities Network put it, it comprises an assemblage of 'plural strategies of resistance' (Jivraj, Bakshi and Posocco, 2002, p.455). Certainly,
the global South(s) where countries have recently decriminalised homosexual acts (e.g., current debates on same-sex marriage in India). Human rights do not constitute a proprietary domain of the geopolitical west, even though it claims this frame for itself. The over-emphasis on equal rights, same-sex marriage and adoption/homoparenting in mainstream queer movements has mainly become an instantiation of a teleological narrative of progress, attributing to the west the advantage of claiming a moral high ground. The deployment of decolonial queerness in this context functions as an analytic - an analytic that describes the events and conditions regimenting queer politics. The current export of homophobia via the Christian church in countries such as Uganda, for instance, energises hostilities against queer and transgender people with adverse ramifications for local organisations on the ground. The analytic goes beyond a simple observation-description-critique by departing from these narratives not as an attempt to undermine discourses on equality. Instead, it brings into focus movements for socio-economic justice that are often co-tangent to political demands of same-sex equality but are part of a wider network of decolonial resistance, globally. Decolonial queerness constitutes then in its deployment as a strategy of resistance to the harnessing of queer and transgender subjects in the dynamics of power hierarchies, all hierarchies.

The plurality of planetary existence invites us to rethink the North/South binary as a useful categorisation. However, both geopolitical locations contain multiply divided socio-political constituencies whose classification necessitates careful qualifications. There are pockets of the global North (affluent classes, gated communities) in the global South and vice versa (inner-city poverty). Plural ways of being and becoming define the multiplicity of ways of resistance and control. Since there are several Norths and Souths, it is imperative to note that decolonial queerness does not constitute a singular strategy or tool. It is a set of practices and, in this sense, it might be significant to phrase it 'decolonial queernesses'. As the Decolonizing Sexualities Network put it, it comprises an assemblage of 'plural strategies of resistance' (Jivraj, Bakshi and Posocco, 2002, p.455). Certainly,
local mobilisation in all its plural manifestations gain precedence
over a particularised, singular version of global queerness. For
instance, transgender communities and caste-oppressed groups
in India denounce the absence of anti-casteism-as-emancipation
in queer mobilisation in the country, since trans/queer liberation is
firmly tethered to the liberation from caste structures. As Akhil
Kang observes, ‘a dalit-queer understanding of desire does not
transcend the violent histories of caste or remain tangential to
them but becomes central to remembering and articulating these
histories’ (2023, pp.66-67). Writing decolonial queerness in India,
therefore, implies the critique of colonial and postcolonial power
structures in place through which Brahminical heteropatriarchy
authoritatively regiments discourse on all sexualities and caste
supremacy. The recognition of this constitutive element of social
life, of all life in India, would allow a move beyond global queer
imperatives and begin the labour of dismantling caste structures
as a primary task of queer and trans-organisation.

Operating as an epistemic tool by indicating the faultlines in
strategies of inclusion or in emancipatory “ideals” of a monolithic
global queerness, decolonial queerness advocates a political
stance of resistance to them not solely based on refusal but also
on depriviliging queerness as a facile nominal identity. Extricating
oneself from relations of coloniality or other forms of dominance
necessitates unsettling relations of power to embark on a process
of healing. Since decolonial studies place the accent on healing
from the colonial wound, decolonising queerness consists of
resistance to homophobia and transphobia, an active production
of established heteronormative hierarchies such that queer and
transgender people survive, heal and thrive in the midst of
planetary life in the Norths and Souths. Decolonial queerness
enables us to contemplate those modalities of existence that are
not systematically tethered to a hierarchical organisation of our
worlds. In other words, it is used as political praxis based on the
transformative potential of two theorisations, that of queer and
decolonial.

Pursuing the intellectually generative possibilities of transnational
feminisms, Black queer studies and queer of colour critiques,
local mobilisation in all its plural manifestations gain precedence
over a particularised, singular version of global queerness. For
instance, transgender communities and caste-oppressed groups
in India denounce the absence of anti-casteism-as-emancipation
in queer mobilisation in the country, since trans/queer liberation is
firmly tethered to the liberation from caste structures. As Akhil
Kang observes, ‘a dalit-queer understanding of desire does not
transcend the violent histories of caste or remain tangential to
them but becomes central to remembering and articulating these
histories’ (2023, pp.66-67). Writing decolonial queerness in India,
therefore, implies the critique of colonial and postcolonial power
structures in place through which Brahminical heteropatriarchy
authoritatively regiments discourse on all sexualities and caste
supremacy. The recognition of this constitutive element of social
life, of all life in India, would allow a move beyond global queer
imperatives and begin the labour of dismantling caste structures
as a primary task of queer and trans-organisation.

Operating as an epistemic tool by indicating the faultlines in
strategies of inclusion or in emancipatory “ideals” of a monolithic
global queerness, decolonial queerness advocates a political
stance of resistance to them not solely based on refusal but also
on depriviliging queerness as a facile nominal identity. Extricating
oneself from relations of coloniality or other forms of dominance
necessitates unsettling relations of power to embark on a process
of healing. Since decolonial studies place the accent on healing
from the colonial wound, decolonising queerness consists of
resistance to homophobia and transphobia, an active production
of established heteronormative hierarchies such that queer and
transgender people survive, heal and thrive in the midst of
planetary life in the Norths and Souths. Decolonial queerness
enables us to contemplate those modalities of existence that are
not systematically tethered to a hierarchical organisation of our
worlds. In other words, it is used as political praxis based on the
transformative potential of two theorisations, that of queer and
decolonial.

Pursuing the intellectually generative possibilities of transnational
feminisms, Black queer studies and queer of colour critiques,
decolonial queerness clears space for the shift in envisioning queerness. Such a move implies that queerness-as-politics replaces queerness-as-identity. In so doing, it aligns queerness with decolonial thinking that fashions itself as practice and politics. Additionally, eschewing the co-optation of queer subjects in the global scheme of mobilising queer subjects-as-victims of Islam in Muslim countries, it remains alert to such recuperative attempts to silence critique of wars in the global North and, forges connections with all oppressed communities in Palestine, Kashmir or other occupations. Such devious instances of right-wing machinations have been emergent in postcolonial states such as India where both decolonial and queer theorisations are currently being mobilised as part of the fundamentalist Hindutva agenda. Decolonial queerness as a practice, then, enacts a politics of refusal to partake in conversations that result in maintaining the status quo of coloniality of power, thinking, knowledge and being, offering solidarity to communities engaged in their self-emancipation and determination instead.

Decolonial queerness is one amongst a multitude of analytics and in this regard possesses the potential to re-energize our thinking of all hierarchies. It will be overambitious to state that it will save the world; it eschews such grand narratives of saviourism. Instead, it remains a productive possibility and operates akin to the decolonial option as only one option amongst many. As a coalitional possibility, decolonial queerness works towards forging alliances with other constituencies and analytics/analyses that are not conventionally regarded as queer at all: race, military and political occupations, indigenous forms of knowledges, disability mobilisation, neo-colonial capitalism, caste structures inter alia. It assertively fosters connections between queerness and other forms of human/non-human taxonomies. Refusing a critique of extant relations of power without informed objectives, it labours to construct coalitions with political mobilisation positioned towards achieving social transformation, whilst continuously foregrounding non-normative genders and sexualities. As with current social justice imperatives, it does not solely aim to achieve equality - even though that agenda is fundamental to the promise of its possibility - but aspires to modify the conversation
decolonial queerness clears space for the shift in envisioning queerness. Such a move implies that queerness-as-politics replaces queerness-as-identity. In so doing, it aligns queerness with decolonial thinking that fashions itself as practice and politics. Additionally, eschewing the co-optation of queer subjects in the global scheme of mobilising queer subjects-as-victims of Islam in Muslim countries, it remains alert to such recuperative attempts to silence critique of wars in the global North and, forges connections with all oppressed communities in Palestine, Kashmir or other occupations. Such devious instances of right-wing machinations have been emergent in postcolonial states such as India where both decolonial and queer theorisations are currently being mobilised as part of the fundamentalist Hindutva agenda. Decolonial queerness as a practice, then, enacts a politics of refusal to partake in conversations that result in maintaining the status quo of coloniality of power, thinking, knowledge and being, offering solidarity to communities engaged in their self-emancipation and determination instead.

Decolonial queerness is one amongst a multitude of analytics and in this regard possesses the potential to re-energize our thinking of all hierarchies. It will be overambitious to state that it will save the world; it eschews such grand narratives of saviourism. Instead, it remains a productive possibility and operates akin to the decolonial option as only one option amongst many. As a coalitional possibility, decolonial queerness works towards forging alliances with other constituencies and analytics/analyses that are not conventionally regarded as queer at all: race, military and political occupations, indigenous forms of knowledges, disability mobilisation, neo-colonial capitalism, caste structures inter alia. It assertively fosters connections between queerness and other forms of human/non-human taxonomies. Refusing a critique of extant relations of power without informed objectives, it labours to construct coalitions with political mobilisation positioned towards achieving social transformation, whilst continuously foregrounding non-normative genders and sexualities. As with current social justice imperatives, it does not solely aim to achieve equality - even though that agenda is fundamental to the promise of its possibility - but aspires to modify the conversation
itself by bringing into dialogue the significance of transformative
coalitional politics and emancipatory mobilisation in order to
enact liberation for all from the stronghold of power and
oppression. Decolonial queerness wills us to imagine our worlds in
a co-constitutive manner towards a collective movement to
liberation.
itself by bringing into dialogue the significance of transformative
coalitional politics and emancipatory mobilisation in order to
enact liberation for all from the stronghold of power and
oppression. Decolonial queerness wills us to imagine our worlds in
a co-constitutive manner towards a collective movement to
liberation.
## ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This essay has immensely benefitted from my connection with the Decolonizing Sexualities Network (https://decolonizingsexualities.org). I'm highly indebted to Paola Bacchetta, Suhraiya Jivraj and Silvia Posocco for their renewed mentorship.

I presented this research at a talk co-organised by RACE.ED and IASH in June 2022 during my time as an IASH-SSPS Research Fellow at IASH. Thank you to the organisers for providing me with the opportunity.
## ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This essay has immensely benefitted from my connection with the Decolonizing Sexualities Network (https://decolonizingsexualities.org). I'm highly indebted to Paola Bacchetta, Suhraiya Jivraj and Silvia Posocco for their renewed mentorship.

I presented this research at a talk co-organised by RACE.ED and IASH in June 2022 during my time as an IASH-SSPS Research Fellow at IASH. Thank you to the organisers for providing me with the opportunity.
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BIOGRAPHY

Dr Sandeep Bakshi researches on transnational queer and decolonial enunciation of knowledges. He received his PhD from the School of English, University of Leicester, UK, and is currently employed as an Associate Professor of Decolonial, Postcolonial and Queer Studies at Université Paris Cité. He coordinates two research seminars, “Peripheral Knowledges” and “Empires, Souths, Sexualities,” and heads the Pôle Société Civile of the Cité du Genre Institute, Université Paris Cité. Co-editor of *Decolonizing Sexualities: Transnational Perspectives, Critical Interventions* (Oxford: Counterpress, 2016) and ‘Decolonial Trajectories’, a special issue of *Interventions* (2020), he has published on queer and race problematics in postcolonial literatures and cultures. He is a founding member of and serves on the board of the Decolonizing Sexualities Network ([https://decolonizingsexualities.org](https://decolonizingsexualities.org)).
BIOGRAPHY

Dr Sandeep Bakshi researches on transnational queer and
decolonial enunciation of knowledges. He received his PhD from
the School of English, University of Leicester, UK, and is currently
employed as an Associate Professor of Decolonial, Postcolonial
and Queer Studies at Université Paris Cité. He coordinates two
research seminars, “Peripheral Knowledges” and “Empires, Souths,
Sexualities,” and heads the Pôle Société Civile of the Cité du
Genre Institute, Université Paris Cité. Co-editor of *Decolonizing
Sexualities: Transnational Perspectives, Critical Interventions*
(Oxford: Counterpress, 2016) and ‘Decolonial Trajectories’, a
special issue of *Interventions* (2020), he has published on queer
and race problematics in postcolonial literatures and cultures. He
is a founding member of and serves on the board of the
Decolonizing Sexualities Network
([https://decolonizingsexualities.org](https://decolonizingsexualities.org)).