Postcolonial Homophobia: United States Imperialism in Haiti and the Transnational Circulation of Antigay Sexual Politics

Abstract

This dissertation develops a theory of postcolonial homophobia based on archival research and multi-sited ethnographic research in Haiti and its diaspora between 2008 and 2014. Postcolonial homophobia refers to the way that Euro-American imperialist discourses construct postcolonial nations as simultaneously too queer (resistant to modernity) and too homophobic (failed modernity), which respectively emerge from two transnational social movements, evangelical Christianity and global LGBTQI human rights. The dissertation demonstrates that the interplay of these discourses produces negative material effects for postcolonial subjects, including those under the signs of LGBT and other queer terms (e.g., masisi, madivin, makomé, bisex, omoseksyèl, trani). The six chapters provide detailed accounts of the effects of postcolonial homophobia in Haiti: cyclical outbreaks of homophobic violence, depoliticization of anti-imperialist resistance, and justification of foreign interventions.