Shifting Positionings and Queer Time at the Precipice of Apocalypse

Abstract

AbstractThis commentary on Kath Browne and Catherine Nash's paper ‘From hegemonic to where?', considers the ‘between‐ness’ and precarious ephemerality of queer life at the precipice of apocalypse. Substantively, the commentary critically addresses three of Browne and Nash's key themes, which they develop according to a queer ontology. These are: (a) temporality, and the notions of nonlinearity and reversibility; (b) the unsteadiness and precarity of ‘between‐ness’ and the radical openness it allows; and finally, (c) the complex and dynamic, sometimes contradictory, understandings and positionalities of [hetero]activism and resistances. This commentary lauds Browne and Nash's significant contribution to greater understandings of these socio‐cultural complexities. The paper demonstrates poignantly how a queer framework can broaden understanding of hegemony and marginality; power, spatiality and gender; and the negotiation of intersectional identities. The commentary also offers a few provocations about just how much room the blurry ‘in‐between’ can be given at this critical socio‐political moment.