Complicatedly, Calculatedly Complicit? Choosing between Cosmopolitanism and Communitarianism

This paper addresses the ways in which critiques of "gay" and "queer" as products of western colonialism (Massad 2007, Puar 2017) are co-opted by religious nationalist groups to support anti-queer policies under the guise of anti-colonialism. This co-option puts queer activists in a difficult double-bind of having to prove their belonging in the imagined nation even as they have to compete for funding in a homocapitalist global NGO economy (Rao 2020). I show that this double-bind leads some queer activists to reshape not only what it means to be queer but also what it means to belong to a religious community. By choosing when and how to be complicit with competing power structures, these queer activists are able to create room for innovation and inclusion through shifting approaches to identity. However, this instability comes at a cost.