Abstract
Reviewed by: Cristina Díaz Pérez, University of Oviedo, Spain
In her new book, Diane Richardson ponders the big questions that have shaped the field of sexual citizenship and envisions the debate to come in the following decades: how does neoliberalism affect sexual politics? What and where are the boundaries of sexual citizenship? In what ways does economics condition sexuality? How is the sexual citizen (not) constructed? Drawing on her outstanding knowledge of feminist theory and citizenship studies, Richardson not only asks the right questions, but provokes the reader to reflect critically on them. Thus, as outlined in its introduction, Sexuality and Citizenship focuses on rethinking and reassessing the interstice of sexuality and citizenship. Richardson provides an overview of the literature of the field and analyses the terminology concerning sexuality and citizenship while addressing key issues such as LGBTQI rights, social injustice, (post-)feminism, nationalisms and globalisation.
The first part of Sexuality and Citizenship, entitled ‘Rethinking Sexual Citizenship’, focuses on advancing the transnational and interdisciplinary approach of the field. Here, Richardson interrogates the limits of citizenship by questioning in depth whether heterosexuality is still the norm for citizenship, and asks where the (sexual) citizen can be found. Richardson describes coupledom, both homosexual and heterosexual, as replacing heterosexuality as the new measure of acceptability of the sexual citizen. However, she argues, coupledom must be performed correctly, which leads her to question the limits of free choice. Economics, cultural context, family and kin are some of the variables that can prevent us from making free decisions. The sexual citizen is subjected to these norms. Thus, Richardson suggests the non-choosing subject as an alternative model of the sexual citizen, and argues that it can both enable and restrict.
Location is another focus for Richardson’s analysis. Sexuality and Citizenship denies that the private is the only realm of sexual politics, since homeless people or displaced persons, for instance, contradict this view. The sexual citizen can provide new ways to counteract the established rules and to decentre the set concepts of private and public and sexual and non-sexual, since ‘sexual citizenship may mean the need to find “private” spaces in public and semi-public places’ (p. 69).
In order to tackle the who and the where of sexual citizenship, Richardson warns against generalisations and universalism, showing that ‘all citizens are (sexual) citizens, although they are not equal (sexual) citizens’ (p. 99), stressing how race, gender, class, income and sexual stigma must be considered to assess citizenship. Nonetheless, Richardson’s analysis would be improved by some discussion of the extent to which disability is a factor when analysing the borders of sexual citizenship.
‘Transforming Citizenship? Sexuality, Gender and Citizenship Struggles’ is the second part of the book, and it assesses sexual citizenship in relation to globalisation, neoliberalism and economics. Richardson analyses the incorporation of sexual rights into broader human rights discourses as a transnational process that de-nationalises the concept of sexual citizenship. Feminism, AIDS and globalisation have influenced the globalisation of sexual politics. LGBTQI rights have steadily been incorporated into the discourses of human rights. Nonetheless, this has provoked a process of de-traditionalisation and cultural imposition of European sexual values in the form of terminology into non-Western parts of the world, as Richardson critiques.
Contradictions and complexities regarding sexual politics are addressed throughout the book to examine the current state of citizenship. They are addressed when analysing why poverty and economic inequality have been understood as separate from sexual politics in the theoretical study of citizenship thus far. Richardson critically exposes how the ‘focus [in citizenship studies] has been on the “consuming” (sexual) citizen’ (p. 167) and on cultural difference in the West, without addressing the fact that poverty, violence and displacement are embedded in sexual politics. The author believes that neoliberalism has provided the context to remove the redistribution of resources from the discourse of sexual citizenship, and it has recklessly undermined the collective fight for LGBTQI rights in its promotion of individualism.
Sexuality and Citizenship is an impressive compendium of all the research in sexual citizenship. It will be of interest to specialists in citizenship studies and the social sciences, but it also has the virtue of readability, so it can be approached by those interested in a timely and vital topic. Richardson takes citizenship studies a step further by being intersectional in her approach to sexual identity and rights of belonging, and by considering how economics and neoliberalism affect people’s lives and intimacy. Besides, she claims that the association of gay-friendly countries with modernity and of non-gay-friendly nations with primitiveness is a political tool of the West, and points to the work still to do in the private and in the public of citizenship research and sexual politics.