‘Queer ethnography’ is booming and making a difference in research on religious communities and institutions. One important significance I hope to see more of is the challenge to the homosecularism of queer studies; that is, the assumption that non-heterosexuality cannot be compatible and integrated with religious identity. I have a few commentaries on this score in Current Anthropology (in a series of responses to Viola Thimm’s article) and the Journal of Gender Studies (co-authored with Diego Garcia Rodriguez) published this year.
Comments on new directions in queer ethnography in religious contexts
I’m quite skeptical of ‘queer’ anthropology. Same sex intimacy has been part of Islamic tradition for centuries, the homosecularists may be right in the sense that homosexuality as they understand it is irreconcilable with Islam.