ABSTRACT
This chapter in the form of a roundtable forum brings together a small assembly of diverse scholars/activists/writers working on gender/sexuality in India and/or in the US diaspora to deliberate on ‘queer and now’ in terms of their work and/or their lives. Understanding queer as contextual and ever-shifting rather than fixed and universal – queer (im)possibilities are impacted by location, space, temporality, moment, relation to body/desire, identity/identification, language – the forum broaches questions such as the following: What contestations exist around queer now? What does it mean to queer, to be queer? How does queer emerge from the local, global and postcolonial? How does queer intersect with and/or emerge from feminist practices/theorizings? What (if anything) is the transformative potential of queer? (How) does queer (re)conceptualize formulations of national subjectivity? What does queer (de)construct? What does it (re)produce? (How) does queer reframe (resist? subvert?) the assimilative function of heteronormativity and/or (trans)national identity and/or neo-liberalism? How is queer mobilized not only as identity but also as politics, theory, practice and method?
