#Wegotthis: Queer Parrhesia in the Register of Parodic Paranoia

Sine Nørholm Just*, Erik Mygind du Plessis

*Corresponding author for this work

    Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articleResearchpeer-review

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    Abstract

    Queer parrhesia is an activist mode of speaking truth to power that destabilizes dominant societal positions and their opposition. We develop this concept and illustrate one of its registers, parodic paranoia, through a close reading of the whistleblower and transactivist Chelsea Manning’s bid to run for U.S. Senate in the 2018 Democratic primaries. Hacktivism and transactivism, we show, constitute rhetorical manoeuvres by which Manning performs (as) a subject position that combines an ethics of paranoia with an aesthetics of parody to enact politics as unusual. Beginning from Manning’s parodic paranoia, we conceptualize queer parrhesia as an inherently transgressive political style and discuss its performative potential for dismantling current social orders and imagining less orderly alternatives. The productive potential of queer parrhesia, we conclude, can only be realized when the subject position of the parrhesiastes is put at risk, gaining strength from its performative vulnerability and, indeed, failure.
    Original languageEnglish
    JournalCulture and Organization
    Volume28
    Issue number5
    Pages (from-to)412-428
    Number of pages17
    ISSN1475-9551
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - Sept 2022

    Bibliographical note

    Published online: 05 May 2022.

    Keywords

    • Chelsea Manning
    • Paranoia
    • Parody
    • Parrhesia
    • Queer activism

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