Between Queer Ontology and Political Indistinction

 

The following is the abstract of my paper to be presented at the Queering Paradigms 7 conference in the Cayman Islands, 11-12 June 2016.

 

Following a protracted hiatus, ontology and first philosophy are once again at the forefront of contemporary philosophical concerns. More importantly, in coming after the decades-long deconstruction of the binary pairings such as subject/object, living/nonliving, human/animal, man/woman, white/black and so on that for millennia have served as the unsupported foundation of traditional ontologies, the leading edge of philosophy is today queering a whole range of ontological paradigms in an unprecedented fashion. This queering of ontology, it will be argued, is crucial to the future of Queer Studies insofar as it offers a radical new direction, one that opens up previously unforeseen possibilities for future political engagement.

In different ways, both philosophy and technology are undoing the simplistic distinction between living beings and nonliving objects, inventing instead sites and bodies of unforeseen indistinction. Consequently, entities occupying this area of indistinction are increasingly becoming sites of intense political and ethical contestation. As a result of the queering of ontological paradigms, the battles over such ‘indistinct’ bodyings are, on the most fundamental level, set to become a crucial concern in the fight against Queer/LGBTIQ+ discrimination in the future.

Arguing that the very category of ‘life’ is in fact no longer operational, this paper will outline the political implications arising from a number of contested bodies, as well as why such sites of ‘indistinction’ will become increasingly important to Queer Studies and beyond in the years and decades to come. Lastly, I will then consider how today’s queering of traditional ontology has the potential to provide both academics and activists with innovative intellectual tools for empowerment.