MarburgA critical examination of phenomena and transformations of political violence also requires conversations with those individuals and groups who experience violence. The lecture series at the Center for Gender Studies and Feminist Futures Studies at the Philipps University Marburg therefore opens up a space for an interdisciplinary exchange between academics and activists.
While queer theories in the field of International Relations are heavily focused on the Global North, queer lives, queer worldmakings and queer politics in the Global South still remain in the margins. The over two decades of United States’ invasion of Afghanistan and the continued war have challenged security and everyday life for Afghans, particularly for those who identify as murat. Despite the challenges and rise of imperial homophobia, emergence of murat movement situates sexuality in historical Afghanistan and within the context of local cultures, practices, and politics. From dancing in underground spaces to sexing with politicians in private, forming horny kinships, pilgriming for Hajj, and inventing a clandestine queer language, murats in Afghanistan and its diasporas refuse western notions of queerness while queering the landscapes of war and exiles. How do Afghan murats in Afghanistan and its diasporas engage in everyday politics despite remaining in the peripheries? How does murat as a notion and practice refuse queer as universal? This lecture will address these questions while theorizing murat through a de/colonial ethnographic study with Afghan murats in Afghanistan and its diasporas. Theorization of murat invites scholars of international relations, feminist studies and migration studies to a radical and de/colonial queer turn in their research, teachings, and engagements with the Global South as a geography and people.
The lecture is given by Ahmad Qais Munhazim. Ahmad Qais Munhazim is an assistant professor of global studies at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia and works as an interdisciplinary scholar, de/colonial ethnographer and artist. Munhazim’s work troubles borders of academia, art and activism while exploring everyday experiences of war and displacement in the lives of murat (queer and trans) Afghans.
When? Thursday, 15.06.2023, 1815 Uhr
Where? Raum: 201 (+2/0010), Verwaltungsgebäude der Universität Marburg, Biegenstrasse 12
The lecture series is affiliated with TraCe. It is co-organized by TraCe researcher Mariel Reiss and ties in with her research in Research Area 3. Topics from the TraCe lecture series of the winter semester 2022/23 will also be addressed.