ABSTRACT
Several years ago I was invited to participate in a forum on transnationalism in sexuality studies. I was flattered but also confused. Was it possible there were people out there who believed that research on this topic could not be transnational? A number of important articles from the USA had already convincingly argued that transnational theory could help offset powerful tendencies of US exceptionalism or academic imperialism. Subsequent iterations also very helpfully distinguished transnational history from bland compendia of world history, from comparative histories that isolated and reified static categories like the state or class, or global studies which in practice were often scarcely-concealed ‘progress of western civilisation’ narratives. Defining characteristics of transnationalism as advanced in these articles included a focus on circulation, transcendence, inequality, hybridity, and dynamic exchange both across and within borders. Such flows, mixing, integrations and exclusions had to be considered from local to global levels of analysis and with careful attention to modernist biases implicit in the conceptual framework (the nation and sexuality as inherently modern constructions, in particular). Transnationalism would also be alert to – and aim to disrupt or transcend – the borders implicit in academic disciplines, specialised language, methodologies, and conventions. Such borders occlude a vision that, ultimately, implies a radical restructuring of society away from inherited oppressive hierarchies and categories and toward something less alienating than people have collectively constructed through the centuries of war, patriarchy, colonialism, homophobia, and such. Nobody claimed it would be easy to do. 1
