"Out of sight, out of mind: keeping Russia closeted" : a biopolitical analysis of non-normative sexualities in Russia
Weaver, John (2014)
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Weaver, John
2014
Kansainvälinen politiikka - International Relations
Johtamiskorkeakoulu - School of Management
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Hyväksymispäivämäärä
2014-01-30
Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:uta-201401311078
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:uta-201401311078
Tiivistelmä
The law ‘prohibiting the propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations’ in Saint Petersburg has received heavy international criticism with little academic inquiry to understand it and its mechanisms affecting non-normative sexualities. By using a Foucauldian biopolitical framework, this thesis investigates the law’s restrictions as an outcome of modern state practices. Biopolitics is a modern state practice geared at protecting life and ensuring the reproduction of life. Yet, there is a dark side to the life-producing biopolitical coin, in that it involves acts whereby superior and inferior forms of life are separated from one another, all geared at the normalisation of heterosexual conduct.
This thesis first examines the biopolitical rationalisations for the law. Then, it uses first person accounts of the repression of non-normative sexualities to analyse biopolitical government. The interviews have been conducted with the aim of understanding the ways in which non-formative sexualities mobilise the biopolitical discourse of homosexuality and govern themselves accordingly. As well as investigating the possibility for the discourse acting as a site of resistance against the biopolitical apparatus. This enables the thesis to pay attention to specific biopolitical techniques of visibility, normalisation, self-government and the way in which non-normative sexualities have been added to the trope of Russia’s enemies. Taken together, these discourses serve to connect homosexuality with the discourse of ‘Russia must be defended’.
The research conducted found that the laws represent biopolitical regulation, and that the discourses that circulate throughout Russian society are biopolitical in nature. Furthermore, it has found that biopolitical power is paradoxical in its nature, as it aims to produce life, yet causes violence, intimidation and mental insecurity for non-normative sexualities. This was supported with the interviews which yielded harrowing insights into personal emotive accounts of experienced violence. In essence, heterosexual life is elevated as legitimate and legal, and non-normative sexuality, whilst permitted is not protected. With the biopolitical paradox as a feature of biopolitical state practices, the controversial idea of life-producing violence has entered into Russia with regard to non-normative sexualities.
This thesis first examines the biopolitical rationalisations for the law. Then, it uses first person accounts of the repression of non-normative sexualities to analyse biopolitical government. The interviews have been conducted with the aim of understanding the ways in which non-formative sexualities mobilise the biopolitical discourse of homosexuality and govern themselves accordingly. As well as investigating the possibility for the discourse acting as a site of resistance against the biopolitical apparatus. This enables the thesis to pay attention to specific biopolitical techniques of visibility, normalisation, self-government and the way in which non-normative sexualities have been added to the trope of Russia’s enemies. Taken together, these discourses serve to connect homosexuality with the discourse of ‘Russia must be defended’.
The research conducted found that the laws represent biopolitical regulation, and that the discourses that circulate throughout Russian society are biopolitical in nature. Furthermore, it has found that biopolitical power is paradoxical in its nature, as it aims to produce life, yet causes violence, intimidation and mental insecurity for non-normative sexualities. This was supported with the interviews which yielded harrowing insights into personal emotive accounts of experienced violence. In essence, heterosexual life is elevated as legitimate and legal, and non-normative sexuality, whilst permitted is not protected. With the biopolitical paradox as a feature of biopolitical state practices, the controversial idea of life-producing violence has entered into Russia with regard to non-normative sexualities.