Abstract:

How does capitalism shape gender and race relations? In this talk I examine this question from the vantage point of an indigenous LGBT activist in the Ecuadorian Amazon, Wilo/Nicole, who also works as a consultant for beauty pageants. I move from their life trajectory to geopolitical considerations, addressing on the way  the economic dimensions of both indigenous and LGBT activism and the racial and class dimensions of sex and beauty work. Moving through these scales, capitalism appears not as a singular force but as a dynamic system of contradictory forces that enables activism just as it limits it. Such a perspective enables a queer marxist critique of queer studies’ ignorance of economics, of marxism’s blindness to the erotic, and of intersectionality’s political limitations. This talk is based on 19 months of ethnographic fieldwork in the Ecuadorian Amazon between 2011 and 2017.    

Speaker:

Postdoc Victor Cova, Department of Anthropology, AU

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The Gendering in Research Network provides a platform for gender researchers and students at Aarhus University to discuss, collaborate, and exchange ideas. For further information about the Gendering in Research Network, please contact: Lea Skewes, IMC Theresa Ammann, IMC

The Gendering in Research Network provides a platform for gender researchers and students at Aarhus University to discuss, collaborate, and exchange ideas. For further information about the Gendering in Research Network, please contact: