Sex at the Forum: Sexual Justice and the Alter-Globalization Movement
Article notes[1]
To imagine how sexual justice might relate to economic justice, the
empirical materialist in me asks: how, and where, do they meet already?
The actually existing projects I turn to in response are the global
movements associated with economic justice, specifically the alter- or
anti-globalization movements associated with the World Social Forum
(WSF). Examining the geopolitical contexts, texts, and practices of the
Forum, I explore how projects for sexual and economic justice have, or
have failed to, interact in that self-consciously alternative space.
My emphasis on this particular site emerges from reflections on modes
of interpreting transnational feminist and queer politics. One common
mode evaluates the intersection of economic and sexual justice projects
according to received scales of political judgement, for example, scales
of political success, radicalism, or inclusion. Another mode analyzes
projects respective conceptual logics, often according to similar
scales. This essay opts for a different mode, which might be considered
empirical and materialist. It brings an analytical geographic lens to
explore claims for justice made through particular forms and spaces at a
particular historical juncture. Such a theoretically-inflected but
empirical description of actually existing politics explores analytical
questions about the affiliation of Marxism with queer and feminist
theories through materialist investigations of history, location,
relation, and practice.
Actually Existing Limits
In the post-Cold-War period, characterized by the diminished power of
an international socialist idiom,[2]
the most vibrant calls for
transnational economic justice have been the disparate political
projects that loosely cohered under the labels "global justice" or
"anti/alter-globalization."[3]
Many of these projects come together at
the World Social Forum, a gathering of thousands that has met in Brazil,
India, Kenya, and at smaller regional forums for nearly a
decade.[4]
The WSF (or in its original host language, Portuguese, the Fórum
Social Mundial), began in 2001 as a protest against capitalist
globalization (specifically against the powerful and private World
Economic Forum held in Davos at the same time). In subsequent years, it
evolved into a wide umbrella for radical politics, incorporating
expanded representations of sexuality in its programming. Advocates for
women's sexual rights and for the rights of lesbians, gays, bisexuals
and transgenders—LGBT or queers—have found sympathetic ground at the
Forums held in Brazil and India and many of the regional Forums,
although not all of them. This essay discusses the WSF editions from
2001 to 2007 as a real-world sites where the political projects of
sexual and economic justice co-exist and, potentially, comingle.
Although WSF politics have a somewhat identifiable core centered on
struggles against global capitalism and imperialism, there is
contestation over how that political center articulates with other
issues, such as national struggles, orthodox religions, or
non-governmental organizations—or gender or sexuality. Many have
argued that the alter-globalization movement's reception of feminist
contributions remains uneven, incomplete, or
under-thought.[5] And if the
WSF's engagement with feminism remains underdeveloped, the articulation
of sexual politics is even less clear. According to Johanna Brenner, the
Forum exhibits "strategic silences" about abortion and sexual
orientation, in large part because of it welcomes the anti-imperialist
projects of religious organizations that are otherwise conservative on
gender and sexual politics.[6]
The limited integration of sexual politics
into the prevailing political discourse of the World Social Forum
conjures up long-standing suspicions that the left's view of the
salience of sexual politics remains dim.[7]
The starting point for this essay is this observation: that
progressive sexual and economic politics come together unevenly and
incompletely at the Forum. A simple reason for this is the fact that
advocacy for sexual politics and economic justice, as expressed at the
WSF, have autonomous genealogies and orientations. In the approach taken
here, I do not adjudicate, but rather describe the uneven convergence
between the two projects as they are appear in three domains: the
geopolitical context for the two fields; global-justice discourse about
sexuality (represented by WSF texts); and sexual-rights engagements in
the space of the World Social Forum.
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