Queer Indigenous Standpoint Theory: Exploring Theoretical Frameworks Through BlaQ Bodies
摘要
In 2021 Sullivan and Day debuted their Queer Indigenous Standpoint Theory, creating a methodology specific to Queer Indigenous Peoples. They place Queer Gender Diverse Indigenous People at the centre of their lived realities in heteronormative colonial society and invite its application to multiple settings ripe for reform and critique. Although Sullivan and Day state that their theory furthers the work of Nakata’s Indigenous Standpoint Theory and Moreton-Robinson’s Indigenous Women’s Standpoint Theory, there is space for a deep theoretical dive. I return to the ground-breaking work of our Academic Elders Nakata, Moreton-Robinson, and LT Smith in search of untangling binaries and dual imperatives that may impede a deeper understanding of the theoretical and cultural bounds of what a Queer Indigenous Standpoint Theory may be conceived as and evolve into. I use my Blaq body to explore the potential theoretical frameworks that may assist in further describing and operationalising Queer Indigenous Standpoint Theory, and what benefits it may bring to decolonial acts. This chapter will grapple with the unfinished business of calls for flexibility in Indigenous Standpoint Theory and the tension that this creates when BlaQness comes into theoretical frameworks and the specificity that may be required.