The Feeling of Kinship: Queer Liberalism and the Racialization of Intimacy

by David L. Eng

In The Feeling of Kinship , David L. Eng investigates the emergence of “queer liberalism”—the empowerment of certain gays and lesbians in the United States, economically through an increasingly visible and mass-mediated queer consumer lifestyle, and politically through the legal protection of rights to privacy and intimacy. Eng argues that in our “colorblind” age the emergence of queer liberalism is a particular incarnation of liberal freedom and progress, one constituted by both the racialization of intimacy and the forgetting of race. Through a startling reading of Lawrence v. Texas , the landmark legal decision overturning Texas’s antisodomy statute, Eng reveals how the ghosts of miscegenation haunt both Lawrence and the advent of queer liberalism. Eng develops the concept of “queer diasporas” as a critical response to queer liberalism. A methodology drawing attention to new forms of family and kinship, accounts of subjects and subjectivities, and relations of affect and desire, the concept differs from the traditional notions of diaspora, theories of the nation-state, and principles of neoliberal capitalism upon which queer liberalism thrives. Eng analyzes films, documentaries, and literature by Asian and Asian American artists including Wong Kar-wai, Monique Truong, Deann Borshay Liem, and Rea Tajiri, as well as a psychoanalytic case history of a transnational adoptee from Korea. In so doing, he demonstrates how queer Asian migrant labor, transnational adoption from Asia, and the political and psychic legacies of Japanese internment underwrite narratives of racial forgetting and queer freedom in the present. A focus on queer diasporas also highlights the need for a poststructuralist account of family and kinship, one offering psychic alternatives to Oedipal paradigms. The Feeling of Kinship makes a major contribution to American studies, Asian American studies, diaspora studies, psychoanalysis, and queer theory.

Genres: Queer, Nonfiction, Academic, Theory, Politics, Gender and Sexuality, Race

251 pages, Paperback

First published April 22, 2009

About the author

David L. Eng is a Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of Pennsylvania and also a member of the Asian American Studies Program.

Reviews

[rena ୨ৎ · Rating 5 out of 5]

um, wow. i loved reading this.

“It underscores the complicated political affiliations and emotional conflicts that mark the cleaving of homeland from nation, a nexus of conflicting political and psychic demands that continually exceeds the Manichean binaries of friend versus enemy, Asian versus American—indeed, constituting the impossibility of the category of ‘Asian American.’”

like SORRY?!

[Erin]

Literary theory strikes again

[Ethan Park · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reflects a strong concern with the aesthetic dimension of queer liberalism and how it sidesteps relevant social issues (race being at the forefront, but spanning transnational migration, globalization, the post-colony, and heteronormative mandates on kinship and family structure) in favor of its ability to preserve its position as “the” social issue of the 21st century. Moving away from a spectacularized rhetoric of queer liberation (which seems to continuously reify under new material circumstances, one need not look far to see the drastic difference in treatment of queer people between the rise of the queer liberation movement following Stonewall in the early 70s and today), Eng offers alternative approaches to thinking about “queer liberalism(ation)” today (because, of course, we still have a long way to go, one not need to look far to see violent forms of anti-trans discrimination). The book reflects an anxiety about remaining truthful to material circumstance (taking shape in its methodical account of the events that transpired the Lawrence v Texas bill). Nonetheless, this anxiety is undercut by the highly theoretical approach in the preceding chapters where he uses psychoanalysis to offer readings of various films and novels. I found this interesting, but perhaps uncertain of its message (obviously alternatives to queer liberalism more broadly, but precisely what those alternatives were are hard to figure out). Maybe this is just a reflection of the limitations that “the Oedipus,” as he conceives of it, imposes on our ability to imagine alternatives. Overall, a concerned analysis that seeks an ethic that might revive a blind spot in the narrative of queer liberation and the liberal attitude that has emerged.

[6655321 · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first chapter is honestly good, like 5 stars good; but the rest of the book just... drags... Eng makes good and original points but most of the later chapters of the book feel very repetitive.

[Rebecca · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wanted to like this book, given its stated goal of connecting the politics of queer liberalism (often described as queer assimilation in contrast to a more radical queer politics) to neoliberal economics and colorblind discourse. However, I found the book's post-structural and psychoanalytic framework obscured rather than explicated those links, which have been made more clearly elsewhere. So, while there were discussions of the problematic politics of queer 1st worlders adopting "3rd world" babies, and a discussion of why people shouldn't compare Lawrence v. Texas to Brown v. Board (the comparison of which has also been discussed elsewhere) these discussions were not connected to later arguments about transracial adoption that were by far the most interesting chapters of the book. There were other pieces - an effort to redefine kinship so that it could be compatible with post-structuralism and to use a method described as "queer diasporas" which seemed to me to be asserted rather than well argued. Ultimately, the most interesting arguments in the book concerned the role of race in psychoanalysis and the notion of "racial melancholia" as the trace in colorblind discourse.

[Eric · Rating 4 out of 5]

Eng's book provides some strong readings that pull apart the problem of "queer liberalism," that is the manner in which the queer project of social critique has been pulled into (against its own recognition) the motives and projects of the imperial nation-state. This means recognizing the relationship between gay (and straight) global adoption and histories of colonialism, as well as searching for a way to heal the wounds that persist under the illusion of a colorblind age. He also provides a brilliant re-reading of the landmark "Lawrence v. Texas" case, restoring the racialized basis that has been occluded in our popular memory and the case's legacy regarding the right to privacy. If at times, Eng appears to struggle with uniting the critique of queer liberalism with the racialization of intimacy, as he calls it, it is only an indication of the very difficult work he is trying to do here.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read intro and a few chapters on transnational adoption for a project. Eng uses psychoanalysis to approach what he calls "queer liberalism" (and what Puar calls homonationalism), which denotes the acceptance of gay/lesbian couples into national narratives of familial/racial normality. For Eng this tends to write off/ignore the racial (non-white) other, and his chapters are primarily designed to show why race needs to be re-inserted into considerations of kinship and family. He sees transnational adoption as a priviledged site for investigating how this "racialization of intimacy" occurs and how public and private spheres are necessarily collapsed. To me, though, he seems more interested in the racial issues that transnational adoption presumably invokes, and so he might have been better to investigate transracial rather than transnational adoptions, which need not (necessarily) be transracial.

[Mandy · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars rounded up to 4. To sum up vaguely, Eng argues for both a racialized and a post-structuralist account of kinship. Heavy, theoretical stuff, but he's generally fairly clear, though the psychoanalysis was occasionally confusing for me. I liked how his interdisciplinary approach (literature, films, court rulings, and case studies) not only showed the ways in which psychology/psychoanalysis can influence our study of the humanities, but also how the humanities can bring something to psychology. Also - not that this really matters - but the cover is gorgeous.

[ػᶈᶏϾӗ]

This has some really provocative ideas. The analysis of primary materials, though, doesn't really interest me, as it's not my field. But I'm glad I read it and could learn from it.