Roberto Kulpa

A fragment from the opening paragraphs:
"In a way, the project was about “diagnosing” the situation of hegemonic over-determination of “Central and Eastern European” queer studies and activism by American historical models. In the same time, we wanted to go beyond the simple denotative narrative that might answer the question “What does the life of non-heterosexual people in Central and Eastern Europe look like?” We recognise the importance of providing a factual background, especially as the book is aimed at the English-speaking academic circuit of sexuality studies, where Central and Eastern Europe is not well researched. But simple provision of information is not an antidote to the void in the Western understanding of the sexual politics and studies in Central and Eastern Europe. By taking up the effort of constructing something like a skeleton of the theory of how to explain the differences between ‘the West’ and ‘Eastern Europe,’ we wanted to address the underlying problem (the lack of recognition of Central and Eastern Europe on its own terms) and not only to remedy the symptoms (the lack of academic literature). As ambitious the project was (and is), it was equally destined to be a ‘failed’ one: a project that could never be realised in itself fully. And this has been recognised by both commentators when they write that the book ‘fails’ to do what is flaunted in the title: to de-centre Western sexualities. Intuitive at the time of compiling the book, and more robust now, the failure of such a project was with us from the beginning. Why then do something that is destined to ‘fail,’ one could ask? We hope that the following paragraphs will shed more light on why the supposed ‘failure’ of our de-centring endeavour is indeed the victory that keeps unfolding."""

As it is always the case of the editing special issues or collected books, we have faced many challenges on the way, some of which we would like to share here, as we believe this insight into the production process is a valuable learning point not only for us, but for all the academic community in queer studies, Slavonic studies, and elsewhere. These challenges arise not only form the process of amalgamating an issue/volume, but also stem from the critical epistemological perspectives that form queer studies (or at least are rudimentary element of these ‘queer studies’ that are close to our hearts).
One of the major issues arising is the almost unquestioned acceptance of the English as the lingua franca of the academic knowledge production process, and indeed, the issues of ‘academic quality’ of/and ‘proper knowledge’...

Excerpt:
The current organisation of scientific production is prone to an increasing number of encounters between researchers from around the world, due to the expansion of communication networks, air transport, and (supra)national incentives for the internationalisation of intellectual labour (but mostly ‘quantifiable knowledge outputs’). Consequently, the everyday life of academics is not only intersected by cultural, social or economic dynamics, but is made accountable to them, especially in terms of the neoliberal economy (think that ‘a track record of successful grant applications’ requirements in the job ads) (Bailey & Freedman 2011; Collini 2012; Farred 2003; Raunig 2013). We urgently need debates about the flux and exchanges between academics, to understand the risks but also possibilities of rebellion these exchanges and encounters offer to academic communities around the globe. For it is important to not only identify the ‘Anglophone hegemony’ in the scientific world, but - like in the project of ‘decoloniality’ (Bhambra 2014; Mignolo 2011) and ‘critical pedagogy’ (Freire 2000; Giroux 2011) – to also look for alternatives and resistance practices to these hegemonies. As the section editors, we are convinced that each of the chapters here offers such a two-step approach, and will become important reference points to working in broader ‘critical gender & sexuality studies’... [tbc]

Perhaps some of the most interesting recent developments in queer studies are those books criticizing the U.S. American bias within the discipline (e.g. Hemmings 2007; Mizielinska 2010; Downing and Gillett 2011), and a move towards embracing "non-Western" geographical others (e.g. Patton and Sánchez-Eppler 2000; Altman 2001; Cruz-Malavé and Manalansan 2002; Binnie 2004). But as much as these steps are welcomed, we should also notice the limitations of these advances, specifically the predominant focus on the "post-colonial" cultures. Working with/in the "Central and Eastern European" ("CEE") geo-temporal paradigm, we feel that there is more to the "non-West" than just "post-colonial". Consequently, we want to focus this chapter on the exploration of sexual politics in "CEE", and ponder the queer possibilities of "queer" outside the "Western"/American/English-speaking contexts. As such, this article remains in a dialogue, as much as it is a continuation of a volume "De-Centring Western Sexualities" (2011b) edited by Kulpa and Mizielinska. In this anthology, the gathered authors assessed the current state of knowledge about sexualities outside/within the "West", by focusing on "CEE" examples. In a way, the book attempted to diagnose the over-determination of the queer studies and LGBT activism in "Central and Eastern European" by the "Western"/American historical models. In doing so, although trying to show "what is local", how queer is different in Europe/"CEE" to the "West"/America, the book was more focused on what is lost in the process of differentiation/translation.
The aim of this chapter is to expand on this notion, and search for what can be found in translation that does not exist in either cultural context. Thus we focus on what is brought to life through cultural permeability, exchange, influence, or simple coexistence. The chapter is composed in three parts. Firstly, we provide the reader with a theoretical framework. Secondly, we exemplify the impossibility of the simple cultural translation of "queer" (understood as the predominantly "Western"/American project) into "CEE" realities by analyzing activities of the NGO "Campaign Against Homophobia" (CAH) . Finally, we show strategies that make a productive use of the "locality" in order to mobilize the queer possibilities of activism in "CEE"/Poland, without necessarily attaining to "Western"/American narrations on the example of the on-going campaign "Love Does Not Exclude".

By undertaking issues of the hegemony of time and space, as reflected in Anglo-American production of knowledge, globalisation, post-socialist transformation, and lesbian and gay studies - the article provides critical engagement with current trends in queer studies, especially of postcolonial provenience. The authors aim to problematize and pluralize the notion of “Western” sexuality and indicate its “contemporal periphery” – i.e. mechanisms of “Othering” CEE (by, e.g. rendering it as “permanently transitional/post-communist”). The authors try to visualize their ideas of time by providing a graphical representation as two separate geopolitical-temporal modalities running parallel, where in 1989 one of them finishes, and the other one becomes universal for both. However, authors contrast the Western “time of sequence” with Eastern “time of coincidence” represented as “knotting” and “looping” of time(s). Mizielinska and Kulpa use as the example of sexual politics in CEE and try to organise the “knotted temporality of CEE” into familiar stages and inscribing it into particular history (here: into Western history of LGBTQ movements), simplifying it in order to make sense of it. However, they also ask set of important questions: Does such “unknotting” make sense? For whom? And what are the prerequisites to be able to understand it in either form? Why certain models are familiar to “all”? And why “local” narrations of lesbian and gay emancipation will be seen as, precisely, “local” and not “universally” recognised? With this chapter, they want to undertake the task of questioning the power relations between “West” and “CEE,” between western queer academic scholarship and CEE theoretical insights, calling not only for “de-centralisation of queer theory,” but also for greater attentiveness to spatial and temporal choices in doing so.

"Although homosexuality in its many manifestations has been a significant factor in societies throughout the ages and across cultures, the real explosion of its politics and visibility has taken place after WWII and, arguably, in the “West”. Respectively, the vast amount of academic literature about sexuality is written from and about a Western (Anglo-American) context. However, even when considering the recent shift in queer studies towards embracing the margins, outskirts, de-centring the politics of geo-location, the growing amount of literature about non-Western cultures continues to be about mostly post-colonial “Far Far Away” regions (Asia, Africa). Still, there is noticeably less work done about the West’s “neighbouring” countries of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE).
By introducing CEE as a “European context” (thus somehow “Western-ish” since “European” tends to equal “Western”) we would like to pluralize and problemitize the notion of “Western”/”non-Western” (because of its stress on “Central and Eastern” denotation) sexualities. We do so, because we believe that the dichotomy “West”/”non-West” is mostly constructed on the basis of Anglo-American ways of experiencing sexuality, making the “Western experience” the normative one, placed at the centre of a narrative. The most straightforward aim of this book is, thus, to critically assess the current state of knowledge about sexualities outside the all-pervasive framings of the “West”, and focus on their expressions in the “nearby” and still underexplored region of Central and Eastern Europe. By doing so, we proliferate both categories, “West” and “CEE”, and show that it is virtually impossible to foreclose and homogenise them as any sort of coherent entity.

"De-Centring Western Sexualities critically assesses the current state of knowledge about sexualities outside the framings of 'The West', by focusing on gender and sexuality within the context of Central and Eastern Europe. Providing rich case studies drawn from a range of "post-communist" countries, this interdisciplinary volume brings together the latest research on the formation of sexualities in Central and Eastern Europe, alongside analyses of the sexual and national identity politics of the region. Engaged with current debates within queer studies surrounding temporality and knowledge production, and inspired by post-colonial critique, the book problematises the western hegemony that often characterises sexuality studies, and presents local theoretical insights better attuned to their geo-temporal realities. As such, it offers a cultural and social re-evaluation of everyday life experiences, and will be of interest to sociologists, queer studies scholars, geographers and anthropologists.
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Contents:


Introduction: why study sexualities in Central and Eastern Europe;
Contemporary peripheries': queer studies, circulation of knowledge, and East/West divide, Joanna Mizielinska and Robert Kulpa;
Between walls. Provincialisms, human rights, sexualities and Serbian public discourses on EU integration, Jelisaveta Blagojevic;
Nations and sexualities – 'West' and 'East', Robert Kulpa;
A short history of the queer time of 'post-socialist' Romania, or, are we there yet? Let's ask Madonna, Shannon Woodcock;
Travelling ideas, travelling times. On the temporalities of LGBT and queer politics in Poland and in the 'West', Joanna Mizielinska;
Researching transnational activism around LGBTQ politics in Central and Eastern Europe: activist solidarities and spatial imaginings, Jon Binnie and Christian Klesse;
Rendering gender in lesbian families: a Czech case, Katerina Nedbálková;
The heteronormative panopticon and the transparent closet of the public space in Slovenia, Roman Kuhar;
Heteronormativity, intimate citizenship and the regulation of same-sex sexualities in Bulgaria, Sasha Roseneil and Maryia Stoilova;
Situating intimate citizenship in Macedonia – emotional navigation and everyday queer/KVAR grounded moralities, Alexander Lambevski;
Index.
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Reviews:

'De-Centring Western Sexualities advances critical studies of sexualities and sexual politics in significant and inspiring ways. The authors provocatively question the "Western" focus of sexuality studies and highlight the consequences of Central and Eastern Europe's absence from recent queer critiques. This valuable collection offers essential new perspectives on the marketization of (homo)sexuality and the functioning of heteronormativity in these countries.'

Gavin Brown, University of Leicester, UK, co-editor of Geographies of Sexualities

'De-Centring Western Sexualities is a landmark volume in the study of gender and sexuality. Kulpa and Mizielinska have gathered here and framed some of the very best essays on discourses of sexuality in the context of Central and Eastern Europe. Not content to simply mark distinctions between East and West, the US and the rest, local and global, the editors' introduction and many of the essays here actually retheorize concepts of temporality, spatiality and sociality in the process of asking after the meaning of sexuality outside of its framing in "the West". Ranging in topic from heteronormativity to lesbian families, from transnational activism to queer temporalities and combining social science methodologies with theoretical inquiries, this collection is as broad as it is deep and it creates many new contexts for rethinking sexuality and de-centering the West.'

Judith Halberstam, University of Southern California, USA, author of In a Queer Time and Place

'There are few publications of which one could say one had waited for them to appear for ten years. This is even less the case with regard to academic publications. This moment of enthusiasm results from the fusion of geo-political, temporal and activist criticism in the book 'De-centring Western sexualities', edited by Robert Kulpa and Joanna Mizielinska. The book explores the question of the relationship of Western European and so-called post-communist countries to sexual politics. While there may have been continuous, emancipatory developments in LGBTIQ politics in west Europe, all activist strategies and all theoretical developments seem to have coincidentally impacted on the diverse communities of the East since the fall of the wall. Robert Kulpa and Joanna Mizielinska literally talk of a 'knot' of geo-temporal coincidences which spilled over the wall: homophile movements, identity-political gay and lesbian organisations which are primarily interested in legal equality and inclusion into a (hetero) normality, as much as queer approaches and groups, which are less interested in assimilation than for the destabilisation of societal walls. (...) This is a necessary book which achieves to document the complex nature of hegemonic structures in a way that allows to unsettle the representation of 'inside and outside'.
Marty Huber (2011), 'Shaking (Stone-) Wall. An (East) enlarged, decentralising book review'. Kulturisse. Zeitschrift für radikaldemokratische Kulturepolitik. No. 1 2001, (IG Kultur Österreich), pp. 20-21.
   
'The dual timelines of development between the Queer movements in Western and Central/Eastern Europe's mean that polarized nationalism(s), the desire(s) for cultural independence(s), differing political loyalties, and differences in language, culture, and legislation further complicate the idea of complete homogeneity in European Queer activist movements. This socio-political soup seems to ensure that the lived experiences of Queer citizens in neighboring countries can be almost completely oppositional. Coupled with huge differences in the rights for men and women, and considering how this interacts with the positioning of rights in regards to intimate citizenship, 'De-centering Western Sexualities' is a necessary academic ear trumpet for us to learn to listen in, for particular ideas present in cacophony of 'Western' Queer voices that are shouting out for their rights. (...) 'De-centering Western Sexualities' gives an excellent insight and attempts a historical overview which asks academics to consider dual timelines of development, for which without an understanding of, the current conflicts within specific European Queer cultures and movements appear overly confusing and incongruent.'
Stefanie Petrik (2011), 'Go West: Queer in Europe and De-Centring Western Sexualities'. Media and Culture Reviews (online).
   
'The editors make a good effort to shatter and rebuild reader's assumptions about the CEE region, which has experienced a "tectonic restructuring" since 1989. They do that in particular by complicating the ideas about European time and space. How come, for example, that we don't think of Germany as a post-communist European country? While doing that they are also able to give some (indispensable) remediation about the geo-spatial and geo-political context the individual texts explore in more details. (...) All in all the collection De-Centring Western Sexualities managed to provide a host of unpredictable angles and new information. While doing that it was also able to inspire some thrilling ideas to be incorporated in novel research projects – something most of the Western queer anthologies that evoke only the "been there, done that" sentiment fail to do. Hence I would suggest that you not just read the volume when you have time, but actually make time to read what Central and Eastern European perspectives could offer you in terms of revitalizing queer theory.'
Tuula Juvonen (2011), 'Where Stonewall Never Happened': Theorizing Queer in Central and Eastern Europe'. SQS Journal of Queer Studies in Finland, No 2.
   
De-Centering Western Sexualities is a valuable and overdue collection of ten essays which address non-normative sexualities and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transexual/transgender and queer (LGBTQ) activisms and politics in the Central and Eastern European (CEE) context. The book’s relevance is two-fold. On the one hand, it provides theoretical and analytical tools to critically assess the hegemony and influence of “Western” knowledge production in relation to (homo)sexual identities, communities and practices in CEE. On the other hand, by presenting intrinsic examples and local case studies of sexual politics, the volume marks a significant step in the theory production of queer and sexuality studies. (...)
Amir Hodžic (2011), 'Review of De-Centring Western Sexualities: Central and Eastern European Perspectives'. Südosteuropa. Zeitschrift für Politik und Gesellschaft, Issue 59.

OTHER REVIEWS:
Richard C.M. Mole (2012), 'Review: De-Centring Western Sexualities: Central and Eastern European Perspectives'. Slavonic and East European Review, Vol 90, No 3, pp. 590-592.

Emma Spruce (2012), 'review of de-centring western sexualities: Central and Eastern European perspectives'. Feminist Review', Vol 101, No 1, pp. e3-e4.

Subhadra Mitra Channa (2012), 'Review: De-Centring Western Sexualities: Central and Eastern European Perspectives'. Anthropological Notebooks, Vol XVIII, Issue 1, pp. 109-110.

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FOR SAMPLE CHAPTERS PLS VISIT:
http://robertkulpa.com/index.php?/published-articles/books/

CONTENTS:
http://robertkulpa.com/images/stories/docs/De_Centring_Western_Sexualities_TOC.pdf

INTRODUCTION:
http://robertkulpa.com/images/stories/docs/De_Centring_Western_Sexualities_Intro.pdf

INDEX:
http://robertkulpa.com/images/stories/docs/De_Centring_Western_Sexualities_Index.pdf""

In your hand is a special issue of lambda nordica that is concerned with ”transitions.” Transition is a term with many connotations; it can refer to a change from one political or economic system to an- other, a movement from one gender category to another, or quite simply to a state of change, a movement from one point to another. By putting the concept in question, the guest editors of this issue also draw our attention to how as a description or an experience, the idea of transition also re ects both epistemological and geopolitical perspective and points of departure. To be ”in transition” can also mean to be in a constant state of change; much like a scienti c jour- nal is, or it can be associated with a sense of being in between, or in waiting – much like we have long awaited this special issue...

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