Figurations of Violence and Belonging:
Queerness, Migranthood and Nationalism in Cyberspace and Beyond
Adi Kuntsman
Peter Lang, Oxford, Bern, Berlin, Bruxelles,
Frankfurt am Main, New York, Wien.
ISBN 978-3-03911-564-8 pb.
<http://www.peterlang.com/Index.cfm?vID=11564&vLang=E>http://www.peterlang.com/Index.cfm?vID=11564&vLang=E
Violence is often seen as contradictory to
belonging, as an obstacle to it, or as a
background against which belonging ? understood
as thee creation of â??safe spacesâ?? ? takes
place. Instead,, this book offers a more
nuanced and critical analysis of the complex
relationship between violence and belonging, by
exploring the ways sexual, ethnic or national
belonging can work through, rather than against,
violence. Based on an ethnographic study of
Russian-speaking, queer immigrants in
Israel/Palestine, and also in cyberspace, this
book is a fascinating, albeit at times
disturbing, journey into the world of hate
speech and fantasies of torture and sexual
abuse; of tormented subjectivities and uncanny
homes; of ghostly hauntings from the past and
anxieties about the present and future. The
author raises daring questions about the
responsibilities of national homemaking, the
complicity of queerness within violent regimes
of colonialism and war, and the ambivalence of
immigrant belonging at the intersection of
marginality and privilege. Drawing from
scholarship on migration, diaspora and critical
race studies, feminist and queer theory,
psychoanalysis and studies on cyberculture, the
book skillfully traces the interplay between the
different forms of violence ? physical and
verbal, social and psychic, material and
semiotic ? and offers novel insights into the
anallysis of nationalism, on-line sociality and queer migranthood.
Mapping multiple displacements and fraught
belongings in uncharted virtual worlds, Adi
Kunstman bravely and creatively opens up new
paths to understanding Israeli immigrant queer
subjects by figuring with and through the
affective dimensions of their political and
cultural lives. Utterly convincing and
provocative in her assertions regarding the
haunted travels, violent histories and
discordant discourses of these queers, Kuntsman
offers us a work that will be an exemplar for
future research in the field. ? Martin F.
Manalannsan IV, author of Global Divas: Filipino Gay Men in the Diaspora
Deftly traversing numerous overlapping locations
of belonging ? Russia, Israel, the UK, and
cyberspace ? Adi Kuntsman has produced a
compelling multi-ssited ethnography of forms of
violence and their constitutive and connective
capacities for and between queer subjects. Her
eloquent interrogation of Israeli nationalism
and anti-Palestinian sentiment in relation to
queerness is a valuable contribution to the
scholarship on sexuality and nationalism, not to
mention, urgently needed in these times. This
book is not only intellectually rich but also
politically inspiring. ? Jasbir K. Puuar,
author of Terrorist Assemblages: Homonationalism in queer times
Working through intersections of Russian and
Israeli, Palestinian and Jew, queer and
homophobe, home and exile, presents and pasts,
recognition and erasure, Adi Kuntsman traces the
ghostly but no less wounding acts of violence
that are the conditions of belonging in
contemporary Israel/Palestine. Inhabiting sites
both online and off she shows us the realness of
virtual spaces, and the virtualities that haunt
the real. Theoretically sophisticated and
ethnographically rich, this book eschews any
easy reconciliations as Kuntsman insists that
violence and belonging must be thought through
one another. Not only will this book be of
interest to a broad range of students and
scholars, but it addresses as well urgent
questions with respect to how we might live
together in difference and more justly. ? Lucy
Suchman, Centre for Science Studiess, Lancaster University, UK
Table of contents
Preface
Prologue: The journey to this book
Introduction: Violence and Belonging
PART I HAUNTED FIGURES
Chapter 1 The Shadow by the Latrine
Chapter 2 The Jewish Victim
PART II BORDER FIGURES
Chapter 3 The Soldier and the Terrorist
Chapter 4 Daughter of Palestine
PART III FLAMING FIGURES
Chapter 5 The Club
Chapter 6 The Flamer
Conclusion: Belonging Through Violence
Bibliography
Index
--
Dr. Adi Kuntsman
Leverhulme Early Career Fellow
Research Institute for Cosmopolitan Cultures
The University of Manchester
Second Floor, Arthur Lewis Building, room 2.007
Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL, UK
<http://www.socialsciences.manchester.ac.uk/ricc/index.html>http://www.socialsciences.manchester.ac.uk/ricc/index.html
http://adi.kuntsman.googlepages.com
