Understanding Global Sexualities: New Frontiers

Description

Over the course of the past thirty years, there has been an explosion of work on sexuality, both conceptually and methodologically. From a relatively limited, specialist field, the study of sexuality has expanded across a wide range of social sciences. Yet as the field has grown, it has become apparent that a number of leading edge critical issues remain. This theory-building book explores some of the areas in which there is major and continuing debate, for example, about the relationship between sexuality and gender; about the nature and status of heterosexuality; about hetero- and homo-normativity; about the influence and intersection of class, race, age and other factors in sexual trajectories, identities and lifestyles; and about how best to understand the new forms of sexuality that are emerging in both rich world and developing world contexts. With contributions from leading and new scholars and activists from across the globe, this book highlights tensions or 'flash-points' in contemporary debate, and offers some innovative ways forward in terms of thinking about sexuality – both theoretically and with respect to policy and programme development. An extended essay by Henrietta Moore introduces the volume, and an afterword by Jeffrey Weeks offers pointers for the future. The contributors bring together a range of experiences and a variety of disciplinary perspectives in engaging with three key themes of sexual subjectivity and global transformations, sexualities in practice, and advancing new thinking on sexuality in policy and programmatic contexts. It is of interest to students, researchers and activists in sexuality, sexual health and gender studies, especially those working from public health, sociological and anthropological perspectives. Cover Title Copyright Table of Contents Notes on contributors Acknowledgements 1 Sexuality encore Global transformations and sexual subjectivities 2 Normalised transgressions: consumption, the market, and sexuality in Mexico 3 'The personal is political and the political is personal': sexuality, politics and social movements in modern Iran 4 The paradox of pluralisation: masculinities, androgyny and male anxiety in contemporary China 5 Rights amidst wrongs: the paradoxes of gender rights-based approaches towards AIDS in South Africa 6 The ambivalent sexual subject: HIV prevention and male-to-male intimacy in India Sexualities in practice 7 'No one saw us': reputation as an axis of sexual identity 8 Beyond resistance: gay and lala recreation in Beijing 9 The limits of 'lesbian': nomenclature and normativity in feminist approaches to sexuality, gender and development 10 Disability, sexuality and sexual health 11 Bodies and their signs: acknowledging and interpreting erotic responses Sexualities in theory, policy and programmatic contexts 12 Some notes on new frontiers of sexuality and globalisation 13 Transnationalism in sexuality studies: an 'Africanist' perspective 14 The right to say no: gender empowerment in US global HIV-prevention policy 15 Sexuality and desire in racialised contexts 16 From research to policy and practice 17 Reflections on the new frontiers in sexualities research Index