ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the erotics of women’s non-governmental organizations (NGOs) by considering the spaces, scales, operations, and practices of NGOs. NGOs are characterized by the professionalization of political and social claims. Recently, NGOs, like human rights and development organizations, have become the objects of research and critical analysis. The erotics of transnational liberal projects can be illuminated by ethnographic work that considers the investments and meanings for participants in globalizing forms of institutions and rhetoric. The social relations produced through NGOs and these international fora do not necessarily relate to, nor even necessarily match with, the purported rationale of the institution. NGO spaces differ from so much of the public sphere that queer life has employed, which neoliberal capitalism has enclosed into private commercial structures. Women’s NGOs are hardly free from homophobia or sex/ gender norms and exclusions. The rise of NGOs opened delimited sexual possibilities for women.
