Brian Walker, “Social Movements as Nationalisms, or, On the Very Idea of a Queer Nation”

 

Introduction [505]

Old nationalisms were racial or ethnic, but new nationalisms (such as those advocated by Kymlicka, Margalit and Raz and Margalit and Halbertal are culturalist.  BUT, if nations are defined culturally, three questions arise:

  1. which cultural groups deserve national rights?
  2. can territoriality be a criterion of a cultural group’s nationhood?
  3. should the fact that a culture is well-established prioritize it, or can newly-emerging nations count?

Culturalists have dodged the above questions by implicitly assuming that the stock of nations is constant and more-or-less overlaps old ethnic lines.  But they should, if they take culturalism seriously, abandon the old and allow all sorts of new ones in, whether or not they are established.  (In fact, the newer and more fragile they are, in theory, the more they need protecting, and if the rights granted to nations are specifically to protect fragile cultures, then the more novel ones, like Gay and Lesbian groups, are most in need.)

 

Nationality Claims and Intergroup Politics [510]

Theorists who defend nationalism have two tasks:

  1. JUSTIFICATION: why “one set of collectivities is justified in putting itself outside the normal bargaining games of a pluralist society” [511]
  2. EXCLUSION: why other groups are not justified.

Three major “justificatory matrices”: Religious (e.g., Herder [512]), Racial and now cultural

Cultural defense: cultures are like “environmental habitats” [514] that play crucial roles in developing basic human capacities, in particular the kind of abilities that liberals value – the capacity to determine one’s life-plan and live autonomously, for example.  Furthermore, not just any culture will do, it has to be one’s own culture.

This is not a problem for members of the majority culture – it is practically impossible to isolate oneself from, e.g., mainstream US culture.  But, precisely for that reason, minority cultures are likely to be threatened.

HOWEVER, under the “fragile context of choice” rubric, FARMERS, FUNDAMENTALISTS and GAYS & LESBIANS appear to count.  Can culturalists find an exclusionary strategy to count them out?

 

The Very Idea of a Queer Nation [518]

Reasons to count gay nationalism as legitimate:

  1. All nationalisms began as social movements, which this is – it’s a people set apart from those around them by “in-group attitudes and discrimination from others”
  2. Has a culture
  3. Has a history (traceable back to ancient Greece at least)
  4. Has a literature
  5. Seeks access to “certain key levers of the state” to ensure survival (particularly given how much under attack they are by, e.g., religious groups)

Challenge: gay “culture” is much too thin in comparison with “real” national cultures.

Response:

a)      This underestimates depth of gay culture. [521-530]

1)      Gays have collectives, discussion groups, bookstores, magazines, political lobbying groups

2)      Gays are “unmoored” from mainstream culture by important differences in lifestyle, legal coverage, et al., which also makes developing a self-concept difficult.  Gay culture provides gays with a social good that others take for granted: a “sense of belonging” where there are “things that one doesn’t have to explain” [527]

3)      Gays are victimized by others

4)      For reasons like (2) and (3), gays have a “duty of rescue” towards others

b)      Also overestimates depth of non-gay cultures
Gays don’t have “distinctive styles” of architecture or cuisine, but neither do the Quebecois (or the US)

 

Cultures in Diaspora [537]

One could reject Gay and Lesbian claims to nationhood by arguing as follows:

  1. Gays and Lesbians are scattered rather than concentrated territorially, as traditional national groups tend to be
  2. Even supposing a part of Manhattan or San Francisco seceded and formed a Gay State, it would not address the needs of those Gays and Lesbians still dispersed among heteros (who might in fact be more vulnerable, as they are now an even less politically significant minority)

BUT: Problems with rejecting Gay nationhood as above:

  1. Even if separatism is an unrealistic option for Gays and Lesbians (because of their diasporic nature) that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t have certain cultural-based rights, such as access to political influence, that a concentration strictly on nation-states ignores or precludes.
  2. Non-territorial diasporas make up legitimate nations (see Seton-Watson, Nations and States)

Problems with “ethno-territorial model” of nationhood:

This model associates nations with particular territories, and demands that the nations be allowed to leave a ‘cultural imprint’ e.g., by naming streets, etc.  BUT:

  1. nations often share territories with other groups, and would compromise their rights in so insisting
  2. this will also lead to political instability (look at Palestine and Israel)
  3. granting privileged status to groups with territory already seems to be favouring those already favoured: that is, if it’s the culture we’re interested in protecting, then those with territory already have a head start in protecting it.  Diasporas and emerging nations have greater need for political recognition because they’re more fragile, and don’t have a cultural imprint to fall back on.

 

Conclusion [543-547]

Modern communication technologies allow more and more scattered groups to identify themselves as cultures.  If, therefore, nationhood is culturalist, diasporic groups should be able to form nations.  With that in mind, we should move away from aspirations to territorial control for every nation (as this is impractical for diasporas) and concentrate on the right each cultural group has to the “common pot” to “promote their ways of seeing and living the world, thereby increasing their sense of self-respect and well-being” [545].