ARTS 2874 (Sociology) Year 2
‘The body implies mortality, vulnerability, firm: the skin and the flesh expose us to the gaze of others, yet likewise to touch, and to physical violence, and bodies place us at risk of ending up being the company and tool of all these too. Although we have a hard time for legal rights over our own bodies, the extremely bodies for which we battle are not quite ever only our very own. The body has its inevitably public dimension. Comprised as a social sensation in the general public ball, my body is and is not mine. Given over from the start to the world of others, it births their imprint, is formed within the crucible of social life’ (Butler 2004, p. 26
As the body has an ‘invariably public measurement’ comprised by social relations, it is through our exposure to physical violence– a cumulative human susceptability — that Butler shows grieving as a political act. Considered that the struggle for freedom locates itself comparable to Butler’s presentation of grief: ‘in which one undergoes something outside one’s control and locates that is close to oneself, not at one with oneself’ (2004, p. 28, we enter our corporeal bodies in link to Otherness; happening by way of and via our very experiences with distinction. By exposing ‘something about that we are … something that defines the ties we need to others, that reveals us that these constitute what we are, connections or bonds that compose us’ (2004, p. 22, the procedure of grieving thereby highlights ‘the basic sociality of embodied life, the ways in which we are from the start and because of being a physical being, already given over, beyond ourselves, implicated in lives that are not our own’ (2004, p.28
Therefore, ‘ladies and minorities, consisting of sexual minorities, are, as a community, subjected to violence, revealed to its possibility, if not its realisation … that each people is made up politically in part because of the social susceptability of our bodies– as a website of wish and physical vulnerability, as a site of promotion’ (2004, p.20 Within the global political context of violence, the questions concerning ‘who counts as human?’, ‘whose lives count as lives?’ and ‘what produce a grievable life ‘ (2004, p. 20 centres the human experience of sorrow.
Hence, I draw attention to marginalised bodies, specifically queer and non normative bodies, as socially-politically made up, and emphasize exactly how LGBTQIA+ people have actually traditionally been categorized as ‘not fairly a life’ (2004, p.34
Posting queerness as a state of brokenness, something that requires “repairing”, the connection in between heteronormativity and queerness appears just as an unique binary, devoid of complexity or subtlety. Heteronormativity is integrity, whereas queerness is brokenness; heteronormativity is life, where queerness is ‘not quite a life’. Instead, their lives were regarded as not worthy of public grieving, excluded from the general public societies of sorrow. This can be recognized in regard to ‘how few fatalities from [the] AIDS [epidemic] were openly grievable losses’ (2004, p.35
Thus, under the normative idea comprising what the body of a human should be (2004, p. 33, the general public’s inability to mourn the mass fatalities of HIV-positive gay guys at the time of the AIDS epidemic, additional strengthened the justification of queer-based violence, for ‘if a life is not grievable, it is not quite a life; it does not certify as a life and is not worth a note’ (2004, p.34
It is under the inquiry of ‘what creates a grievable life?’ that Butler keeps in mind the process of mourning highlights a’ a basic sociality of personified life, the ways in which we are from the beginning and through being a bodily being, already offered over, beyond ourselves, linked in lives that are not our own (Butler 2004, p.28 By situating public mourning as a political act, I accentuate this year’s (2024 Sydney Mardi Gras as an example to how queering grief denies the norm dictating the community’s experience/s towards expressing their emotions outwardly.
The case I am referring to, additionally a core research area referring to my social work focus, centres around Luke Davies and Jesse Baird, who were unfortunately murdered by a NSW Elder Police Constable, just weeks before the date of the Mardi Gras Parade. Because of this, the Board of the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras required NSW Police not march in this year’s annual ceremony, as considerable time and room was called for to grieve these two participants of the neighborhood. However, in spite of the relentless initiatives of the queer area, the NSW Law enforcement agency implemented a ruthless media project, undermining the calls for cops liability and withdrawal from the ceremony, thus strengthening the enduring history of systemic physical violence and oppression (Wei2024
Similar to one another, both queerness and despair stand up to any type of efforts to limit or manage it , rather tackling a myriad of types. Hence, as a neighborhood existing past binary categories of social constructs, queer people have the ability to acknowledge and value the twin nature of grief as naturally transformative, giving the moment, area, resources and consent enabling sorrow to unravel and expand right into its fullest; no matter how much time it takes.
Queering sorrow, thus, require the resistance and transformation of dominant stories bordering sorrow , to jointly envision and develop a globe where we really feel generously supported and seen throughout the mourning process– for a queer politics of sorrow withstands the norm of privatising queer losses
On this account, queering despair, and the right to public grieving, as an act of resistance, therefore allows for brand-new kinds of belonging; redefining the fashion of grieving rituals by collectivising and queering despair methods. While the emotional experience of despair is isolated and subjective to each individual, the restorative power of mourning, amidst area, help in establishing greater recovery outcomes; furthermore resituating mourning as a prejudiced political act– to mourning as a cumulative act of queer resistance and cultural recovery, via event/ celebration.
The example of Satisfaction Parades, as both a mourning ritual and a protest/ event, therefore resists social(cultural) ideas of sorrow, rejecting heteronormative kinds of public grieving by including claimed duality. As a celebration of the substantial progress accomplished within queer advocacy, the Mardi Gras ceremony, coming from initially as both a protest and celebration of queer liberation, adhering to the Stonewall Troubles in the States, is a time to keep in mind and mourn all the lives shed in the struggle for LGBTQIA+ civil liberties; yet likewise raise recognition concerning the occurrence of discrimination and police brutality, while concurrently celebrating those that led the way for transformative social modification, forming our really experiences in today.
For it is these very stories of remembrance that call our names, that give an account of our value and worth, that stress the existence of our (queer) connections, throughout times like the AIDS epidemic, as legimitable; essential– that we mattered and we counted.
For this reason, linking back to the aforementioned study, by overlooking the uncomfortable background and political element of Mardi Gras, dismissing the demand to grieve Luke and Jesse, the NSW Cops’s failing and disregard to recognize any injury caused, better contributed to the distrust felt by the queer area. In rearranging and asserting dominant power connections right into this year’s Mardi Gras, the basic facet to queering despair is consequently minimized and impeded on, aggravating the degree of mourning and grieving seasoned.
The procedure of pain and mourning openly, as queer bodies, is as a result made obvious within the current instance of Luke and Jesse.
To publicly mourn the loss of queer lives is critical to our liberation, constituted within us, in which we are no place without all those who came prior to us (Butler 2004, p.49 For these are the specific tales, words, voices, lifestyles, and methods of loving, that we owe in keeping to life via queering grieving methods; opening brand-new ways of associating and becoming that identify and bear in mind all those we have actually lost and found, and the improvements along the way.