Nativism or Universalism: Situating LGBT Discourse in the Philippines

J. Neil C. Garcia

doi:http://doi.org/

Abstract

http://dx.doi.org/10.13185/KK2013.02003

Despite or precisely because of the fact that it is being increasingly globally invoked, the LGBT signifier bids us to understand its discursive performances in various localities, particularly in the global south, whose conservative traditions this form of politics most visibly challenges, at the same time that it can only do so translationally—which is to say, as a form of transcultural syncretism. More specifically, this paper offers a postcolonial reading of LGBT discourse in the Philippines, examining the confluence between the discourse of Western “psychospirituality” and the local idiom of interiority (kalooban), as evinced, in particular, in the minoritized identity of the bakla. This conceptual history concludes with the proffering of a theoretical argument about the usefulness of a moderate nativist perspective, that allows for the inclusion of hybridity in the analysis of heteronormative sexual and gendered constructions in sites outside the sexological tradition from which they originally arose.

Keywords

bakla, transgender, postcolonial homosexuality

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Kritika Kultura
Department of English
School of Humanities
Ateneo de Manila University

The Philippine Commission on Higher Education (CHED) declares Kritika Kultura as a CHED-recognized journal under the Journal Challenge Category of its Journal Incentive Program.

International Board of Editors

Jan Baetens
Professor
Faculty of Arts
Katholieke Universiteit te Leuven (Belgium)

Joel David
Professor of Cultural Studies
Inha University (South Korea)

Michael Denning
Professor of American Studies and English
Department of English
Yale University (US)

Faruk
Faculty of Cultural Sciences
Universitas Gadjah Mada (Indonesia)

Regenia Gagnier
Professor of English
University of Exeter (UK)

Leela Gandhi
John Hawkes Professor of the Humanities and English
Brown University (US)

Inderpal Grewal
Professor of Women's Gender and Sexuality Studies
Professor of South Asian Studies, Ethnicity, Race and Migration Studies
Yale University (US)

Peter Horn
Professor Emeritus and Honorary Lifetime Fellow
University of Cape Town (South Africa)
Honorary Professor and Research Associate in German Studies
University of the Witwatersrand (South Africa)

Anette Horn
Professor of German Studies
University of the Witwatersrand (South Africa)

David Lloyd
Distinguished Professor of English
University of California, Riverside (US)

Bienvenido Lumbera
National Artist for Literature
Professor Emeritus
University of the Philippines

Rajeev S. Patke
Director of the Division of Humanities
Professor of Humanities
Yale NUS College (Singapore)

Vicente L. Rafael
Giovanni and Amne Costigan Endowed Professor of History
University of Washington (US)

Vaidehi Ramanathan
Department of Linguistics
University of California, Davis (US)

Temario Rivera
Professorial Lecturer
Department of Political Science
University of the Philippines

E. San Juan, Jr.
Philippines Studies Center (US)

Neferti X.M. Tadiar
Professor of Women’s, Gender, & Sexuality Studies
Barnard College (US)
Director of the Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race
Columbia University (US)

Antony Tatlow
Honorary Professor of Drama
Trinity College Dublin (Ireland)

Nativism or Universalism: Situating LGBT Discourse in the Philippines

J. Neil C. Garcia: University of the Philippines

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