Un/certain Times for the ‘Natural Order’? Queer-Feminist Critiques of Authoritarian Phantasms and Emancipatory Rebuttals

Abstract

A frequently observed reaction to the insecurities caused by multiple crises in neoliberal capitalism invokes a seemingly pre-political ‘natural order’ (e.g., Siri 2015: 252; Hark/Villa 2015; Lang/Peters 2018). Based on a biologistic, binary logic, the idea of a ‘natural order’ enables the hegemony of a heteronormative, gendered, racialized, classist, ableist social order. “The problem [from this point of view] is not discrimination and privilege, but rather any attempt to change this natural state of affairs” (Mayer/Goetz 2019, transl.). The founding of the ‘natural order’ in hierarchized binaries is evident, for example, in discourses on “cleanliness and hygiene vs. dirt, beauty vs. ugliness, health and vitality vs. disease, strength vs. weakness” (Stögner 2014: 40, transl.), which are used to constitute the natural ‘(people’s) body’. Furthermore, binarity is materialised through a forced categorization of bodies into two genders, an associated ‘natural sexuality’, as well as their sorting into races and un/worthy life. The naturalisation of such a division of human bodies depoliticises social orders and makes them appear unchangeable. In times of crisis, these orders are often strengthened and protected rather than problematised or reshaped. From a critical perspective, it becomes clear that the phantasm of a ‘natural order’ has a stabilising function that violently maintains existent boundaries. With a view to these phenomena of the dynamics of un/security, the panel spans two lines of flight through the field of queer-feminist social theory: On the one hand, we examine the invocations of a supposed ‘natural order’ as an authoritarian antifeminist phantasm with a focus on the german-speaking region. On the other hand, we counter this with in/security or un/securitisation as a starting point for (queer-) feminist critiques and politics of care.

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