3.2 Queer Methodology
3.2.1 Queer Critical Discourse Analysis
A qualitative critical analysis must investigate how the language used reflects certain beliefs or brings them into existence and to aid understanding of dynamic and complex debates. Therefore, rather than seeking specific linguistic terms a critical approach focuses on the problem at hand and the wider social context in which it is expressed to discover the latent intent and meanings invoked throughout the discourses studied. A critical analysis therefore needs to be interpretive and deductive, identifying clusters of words that insinuate particular meanings. These meanings may not always be expressed in the same terms, but connections between meaningful clusters can also indicate particular interpretations (Rose, 2001:158).
This contrasts greatly with a rigid system of reading and coding research material associated with linguistic discourse analyses, as there are significant weaknesses in this approach for critical analysis.
Such quantitative methods are too prescriptive. “Pre-existing categories” and most commonly used words or phrases may not be the most powerful in influencing beliefs and behaviours, or they simply fail to acknowledge the power behind those words at all, rendering them unsuitable to a critical approach (Rose, 2001:150). In addition, they may miss the dynamic way that ideas might be expressed differently over time and across different social contexts.
The goal of a queer critical discourse analysis is to specifically uncover assertions of the normal and the perverse within the material studied and understand how these influence beliefs, comprehension and ultimately decisions and actions. Therefore, whilst patterns of words and phrases will be sought, it is more important to critically attribute them to emergent themes and understand the relevance that they have to the discussants. That relevance, according to Foucault (1988), includes how the words used shape what we believe to be true, how power relations shape those meanings as truths, how they spread through social networks, and how they sustain certain institutions. Therefore, the analysis identifies phrases and idioms used to describe SOGI rights, sexual and gender minorities and the states that support them as deviant or other. These are captured, analysed for consistencies and clusters, and categorised into dominant themes (Rose, 2001:150-151).
Additionally recognising that the debates in the UN do not occur in a vacuum, it is necessary to explore the intertextuality of discourses. This is achieved by researching beyond the specific material being analysed to gain an understanding of the broader social and political context in which the discourse analysed takes place and how ideas and beliefs are transmitted and maintained within those associated contexts (Rose, 2001:143). This contextual background is provided in Chapters 4
38 and 5. The themes from the contextual background are compared with the clusters of ideas identified in the UN discourses to better establish the meaning and intent of the themes.
The queer critical discourse analysis follows Weber’s (2016a:25-27) summary of the four stages required for Foucault’s analysis of discourse and productive power:
1. Analysing how sex is included in the discourse. This means reviewing the discourses around sexual and gender minorities to determine how non-normative sexes, genders and sexualities are described and the types of subjects those discourses produce.
2. Analysing how productive power functions and its effects. At this stage, the researcher should analyse how the discursive formulations discovered above are controlled through biopolitical power and the normalising regimes this power produces.
3. Analysing how the networks of power/knowledge/pleasure utilise productive power. Here the researcher must study the networks in which this productive power is utilised to identify and categorise the deviant figure and thereby those figures who can be considered normal.
4. Analysing the current understandings of the normal and the perverse. In this final stage of analysis, the discoveries of the first three analyses can be used to determine who or what might be consider as either normal or perverse at any given time, in the knowledge that these may never be fixed or permanent.
This thesis will forensically examine the UN debates, to identify the rhetoric used and the way that this rhetoric aims to make some ideas seem self-evident in relation to sexual and gender minorities and their rights and thereby identify the normal and the perverse in these debates.
SOGI rights appear in a variety of debates and resolutions throughout various UN portfolios including conflict and war, access to health and education and in combatting racism. As evidenced in Chapter 2, South Africa’s actions across these different debates have been inconsistent, including within dedicated sessions on SOGI rights. As noted previously, this study is not seeking to evidence whether South Africa has voted inconsistently, but to explore whether Queer Theory can provide a perspective to understand why South Africa has acted inconsistently.
To identify every UN discussion on SOGI rights would require analysis of a significant volume of UN archives. For example, since their introduction in 2006 the UN’s Universal Periodic Reviews16 contain 1,300 references to SOGI (UNGA, 2016f). Providing a clear definition of the scope of a study will enable others to test or replicate it. Moreover, the research is dependent on accessing original audio, video, verbatim transcriptions or officially submitted statements, as what is said and how it is said are essential for the critical queer discourse analysis. Consequently, to ensure focus and to compliment rather than replicate the existing analysis undertaken by Jordaan (2017a; 2017b; 2020)
16 The Universal Periodic Review (UPR) was introduced by the UNHRC in 2006 and assesses the human rights record of 48 states per year in cycles so that all 193 states are reviewed periodically.
39 and Williams (2017), the defined scope of analysis comprises debates dedicated to SOGI rights and does not include debates focused on other issues that may have included some debate on SOGI issues.
This provides a discrete, significant and long-term study of the discourses on SOGI rights at the UN, including significant incidents of South African inconsistencies on the issue. It comprises 15 UNGA and UNHRC sessions between 2011 and 2020 on SOGI specific resolutions, panel discussions, reports and interactive dialogues. These sessions are detailed on page 100 and include over 60 hours of meeting footage across 30 meetings for discussions and voting on four successful resolutions, nine reports, seven interactive dialogues with the Independent Expert on SOGI, and 28 proposed amendments to resolutions, as well as hard copy transcripts and submitted written statements.
The data analysed can be accessed through the UN extranet. The UN archive includes audio and video recordings of UNGA and UNHRC meetings, two types of meetings report for the UNGA (but not the UNHRC), Verbatim Records and Summary Records17, as well as schedules of meetings, meeting agendas, reports presented, decisions, draft and agreed resolutions, amendments to resolutions and hard copy submissions of oral statements. Audio and video recordings form the primary source of this discourse analysis. However, audio and video recordings of UNHRC meetings prior to September 2011 are no longer available, which limits the time period and types of meetings available for review (see detailed explanation in 3.3). For a discourse analysis Verbatim Records but not Summary Records can replace audio and video recordings as the latter are subject to précis and interpretation.
Additionally, as argued above, state identities and interests are formed not just through domestic concerns, but also through the influence of peers in the international system. A queer analysis requires contextual understanding and so this research adapted Landsberg’s (2014) concentric circle approach to understanding the environments in which South African foreign policy is defined and implemented, namely the domestic, regional and continental, and international. This approach recognises the importance of South Africa’s continental partners, who have at times been vocal opponents of SOGI rights. This is the purpose of the domestic and continental analysis chapters (4 and 5). They provide the contextual background to the debates at the UN and reflect the importance of domestic policies and practices on foreign policy and action.
The data for Chapters 4 and 5 includes primary sources in the form of Hansards; published government policies and media statements; published speeches by government representatives;
tweets from official government accounts; court judgements; parliamentary acts, green and white papers; published media statements, reports and resolutions from regional, continental and international organisations; and online and print news media. These can be accessed through the University of Cape Town (UCT) libraries, proprietary websites and via online searches. Secondary sources are predominately academic analysis of primary and secondary data, including papers
17 Meeting records are not published for all UN subsidiaries and meetings main UN bodies and subsidiaries will have either a Verbatim Record or a Summary Record, not both. The UNHRC does not publish either Summary or Verbatim Records. The UNCHR published Summary Records, not Verbatim Records.
40 researched through interviews and surveys, as well as reports by NGOs and INGOs. This academic material can be accessed through the UCT libraries and online databases, while much of the civil society material can be accessed through proprietary websites. The prevalence of analysis of sexual orientation and gender issues dictated which African countries could be included within Chapter 4.
Finally, whilst Queer Theory and Weber’s queer logics of statecraft provide the substantive approach to this study, by centring the voices and experiences of queer Africans and how they experience IR this study also takes a queer African studies perspective. This approach not only challenges the prevailing Afro-pessimism narrative that paints Africa as universally homophobic, but by focussing on the rights and challenges faced by queer Africans, it critiques the global governments and activists that universalise western queer experiences and propose solutions for African queers without sufficient engagement with the very communities they are seeking to assist (Nyeck, 2019;
Currier, 2019:239). This international imbalance in power marginalises local activists, so by highlighting this concern this thesis intends to amplify queer African perspectives (Hawley, 2001:9 and 14).
Additionally, despite initial concerns about the incommensurability of post-colonial and queer theories, this research is informed by the post-colonial approaches of Ghandi (1998), Mbembé (2001) and Hawley (2001). Queer Theory and postcolonial studies both seek to identify and challenge difference and hierarchies of power. While Queer Theory interrogates the world order dominated by binary genders and heterosexuality, postcolonialism challenges the continued supremacy of the global North over formerly colonised states. This necessitates critical interrogation of the enduring impact of how colonialism has informed the debate around sexual and gender minorities within the African continent. It has also informed the analysis of the approaches taken by global actors as they have sought to address this colonial legacy and the resistance this fostered within some African states. This thesis therefore approaches the critical discourse analysis blending the perspectives of post-colonial and queer African studies to critique the hegemonic cultural transmissions of rigid western definitions of sex, gender and sexuality and recognises indigenous sexual and gender identities.
The analysis will take an adductive approach, moving between the theory and the data continuously;
analysing the written and spoken arguments to determine the political position from the rhetoric used. To achieve this the following process will be undertaken, drawing on the methodologies for discourse analysis for political and visual communications explained by Mogashoa (2014), Schneider (2013) and Rose (2001) as well as insights from Foucault (1988):
• Analysing – the material for each of the three arenas will be closely heard and read taking into account the contextual background, Foucault’s four stages and through a queer lens to start ascertaining framings of normal and perverse.
• Identifying dominant themes – dominant and recurring themes, based on careful reading and contextual knowledge, will be drawn out for closer interpretation.
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• Interpreting – using a critical analysis of these themes through a queer lens, within the contextual understanding, the meanings of these dominant themes will be interpreted to understand the power they are intended to wield.
Augmenting the discourse analysis method set out above, the interpretation of the results will be completed through the implementation of Weber’s queer logics of statecraft to determine how South Africa identifies in response to the framings of normal and perverse on the SOGI issue.