An Exploration of Queer Diasporic Subjectivities in Shani Mootoo’s 'Out on Main Street'

In view of the acute lack of analyses of Indian-Trinidadian queer diasporic subjectivities, this article will focus on Shani Mootoo’s “Out on Main Street” by using a queer diasporic theoretical framework, one which hinges on unveiling the violent practices to which sexually and racially marginalized communities are exposed and on exploring the ways by which queer diasporic subjects subvert dominant assumptions. In order to carry out the analysis, I will, first, offer an overview of the uses and implications for invoking the concept of a queer diaspora to study Mootoo’s story; second, I will scrutinize the manner in which the queer diasporic narrator is affected by exclusivist definitions of gender and national identities, and, third, I will examine the specific tactics through which she unsettles the normative logic. Ultimately, the study of Mootoo’s story under a queer diasporic approach will offer a further insight into the diaspora experience, one which considers both sexuality and translocation as crucial factors shaping the way the narrator inhabits the city.

The Queer Cyborg in Gigi Otálvaro-Hormillosa’s Cosmic Blood

Chapter 4 draws on José Muñoz's Cruising Utopia as a theoretical framework for analyzing the cyborg as a utopian figure for a queer diaspora beyond the heteronormativity and masculinism of the nation. The performance and video art piece Cosmic Blood, by the queer Colombian and Filipina/o American artist Gigi Otálvaro-Hormillosa, challenges both (post)colonial taxonomies of racial difference and contemporary capitalist discourses that naturalize the labor of the racialized, gendered Filipina body. Cosmic Blood uses a science fictional mode to present a retelling of the moment of first contact between the colonizer and the colonized. The cyborg character functions both as a figure for racial and gender hybridity and as a figure for a queer diaspora beyond the familial ties of blood and kinship.