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What Phoenix's jotería is saying: Identity, normativity, resistance

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 August 2019

Holly R. Cashman
Holly R. Cashman*
Affiliation:
University of New Hampshire, USA
*
Address for correspondence: Holly Cashman, University of New Hampshire, Department of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures, 210 Murkland Hall, 15 Library Way, Durham, NH 03824-3520, USAholly.cashman@unh.edu
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Abstract

This article questions queer theory's investment in antinormativity and anti-identitarianism by applying a queer multimodal discourse analytic approach to the ethnographic context of queer, bilingual Mexicans/Latinxs in the US Southwest. The article explores the complexity of ways that norms are taken up and resisted (or not) in discourse, with particular attention to the activist use of discourses about community and identity. A close analysis of several texts illuminates how language practices and social practices—as seen, for example, in advertising strategies, participation in annual LGBTQ Pride festivals, and activism surrounding the undocuqueer movement—become invested with social meaning among queer Mexicans/Latinxs. (Antinormativity, queer theory, bilingual, sexual identity, community, Latinx, jotería)*

Type
Articles
Information
Language in Society , Volume 48 , Special Issue 4: Navigating Normativities: Gender and Sexuality in Text and Talk , September 2019 , pp. 519 - 539
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2019 

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Footnotes

*

This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 1122948. I gratefully acknowledge this support. Very special thanks to Erez Levon and Tommaso Milani for including my work in their panel at the International Gender and Language Association (IGALA) in Hong Kong, and subsequently to them and Kira Hall for including it in this special issue. I am also indebted to Jenny Cheshire and an anonymous reviewer for their invaluable feedback and suggestions. All remaining shortcomings are my own.

References

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