What do you think?
Rate this book
Queering the Public Sphere in Mexico and Brazil: Sexual Rights Movements in Emerging Democracies
Queering the Public Sphere in Mexico and Brazil is a groundbreaking comparative analysis of the historical development and contemporary dynamics of LGBT activism in Latin America’s two largest democracies. Rafael de la Dehesa focuses on the ways that LGBT activists have engaged with the state, particularly in alliance with political parties and through government health agencies in the wake of the AIDS crisis. He examines this engagement against the backdrop of the broader political transitions to democracy, the neoliberal transformation of state–civil society relations, and the gradual consolidation of sexual rights at the international level. His comparison highlights similarities between sexual rights movements in Mexico and Brazil, including a convergence on legislative priorities such as antidiscrimination laws and the legal recognition of same-sex couples. At the same time, de la Dehesa points to notable differences in the tactics deployed by activists and the coalitions brought to bear on the state. De la Dehesa studied the archives of activists, social-movement organizations, political parties, religious institutions, legislatures, and state agencies, and he interviewed hundreds of individuals, not only LGBT activists, but also feminists, AIDS and human-rights activists, party militants, journalists, academics, and state officials. He marshals his prodigious research to reveal the interplay between evolving representative institutions and LGBT activists’ entry into the political public sphere in Latin America, offering a critical analysis of the possibilities opened by emerging democratic arrangements, as well as their limitations. At the same time, exploring activists’ engagement with the international arena, he offers new insights into the diffusion and expression of transnational norms inscribing sexual rights within a broader project of liberal modernity. Queering the Public Sphere in Mexico and Brazil is a landmark examination of LGBT political mobilization.
- GenresTheory
320 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2010
2 people are currently reading
31 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
April 16, 2022
I remember when I started reading this book on a normal day as I worked at the Gender Research Library in Nagoya. It was february 2020 and I had picked it up randomly (the library was so quiet most shifts that I spent 80% of my job reading, what a dreamjob), but it was actually good and rare original and interesting content. I felt a sirge of excitement, which I rarely got in my ever-repetitive grad school life. Life was good.
Then they closed all public spaces and, to be honest, I never managed to finish it. We still came to work to get paid, but we kept the door shut and the lights off. We began dusting all the books and redusting them to keep busy. In the dark I could not read, though I sometimes snuck in the luminary to sneak in some women'spoetry for company in those (literally) darkening days, watching the sakura in front of the library bloom as my own life as I knew it was ending. That tree always bloomed weeks before the others for some reason. I made a special section for african american literature that never saw the light of day I heard. I always wanted to finish this book, much like I always wanted to finish my dissertation. Alas, deported and thousands of miles away, both are a distant memory. But I'm glad I ended on an optimistic note, to want to finish it. I think it is time to close that chapter of my life. Maybe one day I will go back to thinking about assuming public space instead of the more pressing human rights issues in Romania. Probably not. But who knows?
Great book as I remember it, two years later. Thank you for keeping me company in my last days as a grad school student, mr. De la Dehesa, I couldn't have chosen a better book.
Then they closed all public spaces and, to be honest, I never managed to finish it. We still came to work to get paid, but we kept the door shut and the lights off. We began dusting all the books and redusting them to keep busy. In the dark I could not read, though I sometimes snuck in the luminary to sneak in some women'spoetry for company in those (literally) darkening days, watching the sakura in front of the library bloom as my own life as I knew it was ending. That tree always bloomed weeks before the others for some reason. I made a special section for african american literature that never saw the light of day I heard. I always wanted to finish this book, much like I always wanted to finish my dissertation. Alas, deported and thousands of miles away, both are a distant memory. But I'm glad I ended on an optimistic note, to want to finish it. I think it is time to close that chapter of my life. Maybe one day I will go back to thinking about assuming public space instead of the more pressing human rights issues in Romania. Probably not. But who knows?
Great book as I remember it, two years later. Thank you for keeping me company in my last days as a grad school student, mr. De la Dehesa, I couldn't have chosen a better book.
Read
March 5, 2024BOOK: QUEERING THE PUBLIC SPHERE IN MEXICO AND BRAZIL by Rafael de la Dehesa
Comments by Jeff Keith
[two stars] I want to write a review of this book because I think it may have gotten a lot of attention owing to its title that starts with the word “queering.” I didn’t like it much when I read it. It fell far short of meeting my needs for details about the LGBTQ movements in these two countries. I even objected to its subtitle, “Sexual Rights Movements in Emerging Democracies.” The word “emerging” implies that ideas regarding equal rights for sexual minorities inevitably come from outside of the countries in question. The author makes it clear that he believes that all countries in the world should “emerge” from their traditional systems and become liberal democracies, presumably part of the worldwide capitalist system.
The way that de la Dehesa keeps jumping between the two countries was very disconcerting for me. Mexico and Brazil are extremely different societies, and the authoritarian social contexts that they were, in this author’s words, “emerging” from were also extremely different. In order for this book to be useful to me, I felt the need to go through it and mark which country was being discussed on any given page.
The author spends a huge amount of time describing the process of how sexual minority people gained more legal rights through pressuring local and national governments. That has never been a main activity of mine, in my many years of activism in the LGBTQ movement. My favorite books and articles about “the movement” describe individual people and how they interact with one another, even if they might be fighting for equal rights in the background.
The author has a long bibliography in the back. Some of its citations are about the LGBTQ movement, but many others are about things like how governments work and what makes a government give rights to one or another minority group, and so on.
Comments by Jeff Keith
[two stars] I want to write a review of this book because I think it may have gotten a lot of attention owing to its title that starts with the word “queering.” I didn’t like it much when I read it. It fell far short of meeting my needs for details about the LGBTQ movements in these two countries. I even objected to its subtitle, “Sexual Rights Movements in Emerging Democracies.” The word “emerging” implies that ideas regarding equal rights for sexual minorities inevitably come from outside of the countries in question. The author makes it clear that he believes that all countries in the world should “emerge” from their traditional systems and become liberal democracies, presumably part of the worldwide capitalist system.
The way that de la Dehesa keeps jumping between the two countries was very disconcerting for me. Mexico and Brazil are extremely different societies, and the authoritarian social contexts that they were, in this author’s words, “emerging” from were also extremely different. In order for this book to be useful to me, I felt the need to go through it and mark which country was being discussed on any given page.
The author spends a huge amount of time describing the process of how sexual minority people gained more legal rights through pressuring local and national governments. That has never been a main activity of mine, in my many years of activism in the LGBTQ movement. My favorite books and articles about “the movement” describe individual people and how they interact with one another, even if they might be fighting for equal rights in the background.
The author has a long bibliography in the back. Some of its citations are about the LGBTQ movement, but many others are about things like how governments work and what makes a government give rights to one or another minority group, and so on.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews