POLS MA student Hüseyin Arkın Raşit's conference participation

Political Student MA student Hüseyin Arkın Raşit attended 'Eighth International Conference on Interdisciplinary Social Sciences' organized by the Charles University, Faculty of Social Sciences in Prague on 30 July - 1 August, 2013.

Hüseyin Arkın Raşit presented a paper entitled "The Unacceptability of the Bisexual: A Critique of Identity through Biphobic Discourses in Turkey " at the conference.

Click the link for the conference program:

http://thesocialsciences.com/_uploads/I13_Full_Program_7-22.pdf

Hüseyin Arkın Raşit's abstract:

The questions of whether the fixation of identities throughout the political action would effectively hinder alliance formations between resistance movements and reproduce the very repressions which are targeted have long occupied the academic and political discussions concerning the identity politics. This study will pursue possible answers to them with the examination of a particular phenomenon: biphobic discourses employed by various self-identified homosexual actors in Turkey, ranging from the accusation of hedonism to that of hiding true selves with the disguise of bisexuality. Through discourse analysis of the personal accounts and interviews of various self-identified homosexuals, it will demonstrate not only that the degrading and even demonizing depictions of bisexuals are in fact fed by over-fixation of a "gay identity," fetishization of a privileged actor in the sense that it alone has suffered the consequences of the heterosexist hegemony, and investing too much meaning in "being gay" to the extent that all non-heterosexuals are treated as "gays in disguise;" but also that hetero-homo dichotomy is extensively reproduced. It will argue that ossification of identities and relying extensively on them in political struggles have the danger to create new forms of oppression while reproducing the hegemonic discourses of the oppressor majority.