PART II. BACKGROUND INFORMATION
1. Please write a one-paragraph summary of your project
The project ANARQUEER: ESSAYS ON SEXUAL AND POLITICAL DISSIDENCE aims at researching a) the attitudes and discourses of anarchist traditions concerning non orthodox sexualities (gays, lesbians, transexuals, bisexuals), and b) discourses on political and social change produced by gay and lesbian liberation movements (the so called "queer studies").
The final aim is to produce an innovative model of social and political criticism able to link anarchist discourse with the potential of subversion and transformation that underlies dissident sexualities.
2. How will you use this grant for the purpose of your work and what are your financial circumstances?
The grant will be used to pay travel and accommodation costs in New York for a month (July or August) in the year 2000, in order to do research study at the Institute for Anarchist Studies archives, and at other bibliographical centres such as the Tamiment Library of New York University, the New York Public Library, the Library of Congress, the Lesbian and Gay Community Services Centre, and other centres on anarchism and queer studies in New York.
My financial circumstances are very needy. The ANARQUEER project research requires travelling to many places (New York, Barcelona, Paris, Amsterdam, London), and my salary (1.200 $ per month) does not allow me to pay for travel and accommodation expenses in all these places.
3. What experience do you have that is relevant to your topic? (This can include essays or books you’ve written on related themes, educational experience, research, employment, etc.).
I have a university degree in Sociology from Universidad Complutense de Madrid.
I was teacher of Social Research Methodologies in the Universidad Complutense de Madrid and in the Universidad Centroamericana UCA Jose Simeon Cañas de El Salvador.
I am a member of the editorial board of the anarchist magazine Archipiélago, in which I write periodically articles on anarchism and gay and lesbian issues.
I work since 1988 in groups of gay and lesbian activism in Spain: COGAM, La Radical Gay, and KGB. I publish periodically articles and essays in magazines of the gay mouvement: Planeta Marica (Madrid), Mensual (Barcelona), De un plumazo, La Kampeadora (Burgos), Entiendes (Madrid), Debate Feminista (México).
I was involved in the social movement against the military draft, and for that reason I received a 6 month jail sentence. I write articles against militarism, and I give lecturers on that matter (see writing sample attached).
I manage an electronic magazine in Internet for essays on anarchism, social change and queer studies: htpp://www.geocities.com/hartza
Currently I work as an expert in project management for vocational training and employment addressed to migrant people, disabled people, women, and young unemployed people, in the City Council of Getafe (Spain).
* Some articles published by Javier Sáez:
Books:
- Real/racional, radical, educación y psicoanálisis, yupi: "Terminología Científico Social", Ed. Anthropos. 1991. (Collective work).
- El lenguaje del amo y el lenguaje del esclavo: la insumisión, "Crítica del lenguaje ordinario", Ed. Libertarias. (Collective work)
Magazines:
- SIDA y pobreza, Archipiélago Magazine.
- Sexcluidos, De un Plumazo Magazine.
- La pluma heterosexual, Mensual Magazine.
- El nuevo orden homosexual, La Kampeadora Magazine.
Please find attached the covers of some issues of ARCHIPIÉLAGO magazine with contributions of Javier Sáez, Noam Chomsky, Gilles Deleuze, Felix Guattari, Hannah Arendt, Paul Ricoeur, John Rawls, etc.
4. How do you plan to disseminate this piece? (E.g., will your piece be published as a book or an article?)
I expect to publish a book with the results of the ANARQUEER project. Besides I am planning to disseminate these results by several means: press, radio, internet, universities, centres of anarchism, gay and lesbian organisations, and social organisations.
The book will be in Spanish, but after its publication it will be translated into English to be published.
5. Please include letters of reference from three individuals who can attest to the quality of your work and your ability to complete the proposed project (e.g., professors, editors, associates, etc.).
- Ana Macías is professor of Multicultural Studies in the Univertity of Aalborg, Denmark.
- Dr. Andrés Enrique is professor of Spanish and Mass Media in the University of Southern California.
- Dr. Emmánuel Lizcano is professor of Sociology in the Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia UNED, Spain.
Please, fin enclosed a copy of the letters sent to me by Noam Chomsky and Miguel Angel Ruiz in my support during the trial I had to face because of my refusal to do the military service in Spain.
I also enclose a copy of the letter sent to me by the Jesuit Ignacio Martín-Baró when he accepted my project to research the civil war in El Salvador in 1988. Mr. Martín-Baró was vice-rector of the University Centro Americana UCA de El Salvador in 1988.
PART III. PROPOSAL
a. Why is your piece important to the radical transformation of society? What insights does your piece offer into social structures of domination and what contributions does it make to efforts to abolish these structures and create a cooperative, egalitarian society?
My project is important to a radical transformation of society for several reasons:
- critical traditions (both anarchism and communism) have historically forgotten the oppression suffered by those persons with sexual practices out of the socially accepted norm;
- in libertarian traditions, there is a significant absence of references and analysis about desire and homophobic repression;
- it is essential for social change to assume the analyses and practices of other sexualities: dissident sexualities (gays, lesbians, transexuals, sadomasochism, trasgender, bisexuals, etc) mean a radical subversion of the moral and political principles that rule social order;
- the project is useful to implement a critic and a radical socio-political activity. In doing so it is essential to introduce a gender approach, not to create new identities, but to produce discourses and practices in order to question identities and to analyse power strategies on bodies, pleasures and sexuality;
b. Why is your piece especially important at this particular time?
- libertarian thought and activity should use dissident sexualities as a permanent tool for subversion;
- in most countries, gays and lesbians are victims of repression by governments and laws because they are seen a threat to social order; anarchism, as a struggle against any kind of oppression, must be aware of this fact, and my project wants to facilitate this awareness in order to launch new strategies of social action;
- an egalitarian society should not allow nor promote any kind of orthodox sexual domination;
- gays and lesbians have developed very important activism as well as theories of social criticism in their struggle against oppression in this century (including the so called "queer studies"), and these experiences can be used by the libertarian movement;
The ANARQUEER project wants to research all these issues in order to contribute to the social change, and to create a dialogue between anarchism and queer movement.
c. How is your piece different from other works on the same topic?
- my work is different because it is not focused on consolidate gay and lesbian identities nor rights, but to use their subversive potential in order to change permanently the social order. I don’t seek a normalization nor integration in the social order for gay and lesbian people (there are many projects on this subject), but to subvert this order by using sexual dissidence.
- I consider that the link between anarchism and queer struggle is needed, because both trends live separately until now;
- I consider that it is an original idea to add to the political thought the analysis of control over bodies, desires and sexualities. Body and sex are politics, and therefore they can be a revolutionary issue.
- the project will also try to question the medical – scientific discourse, because it is one of the main discourses that have contributed to develop the concept of "normality" and disease (mental, sexual behaviour) to control, exclude, punish and discipline the social subjects.
d. Please submit a section by section outline of your piece.
- Anarchist traditions and sex: a significant oblivion.
- Sex in the nudist movement and in the Communes.
- Bakunin and Netchaev: an homophobic affair?
- The positivism and the discourse of sexual normality. The subject of science.
- Subversive potential of psychoanalysis: politics and ethics. The subject of psychoanalysis.
- The State and social exclusion forms: poverty, madness, jail, illness, "perverted" sexualities.
- Deviant sexuality and social change: anthropologic experiences (the "trickster" and the "berdache" among the american indians).
- Power and truth about sex.
- Homosexual liberation movement. The queer movement: radical activism beyond identities.
- Capitalism and sexuality management.
- Towards a complex model of social change.
e. Please also enclose a sample bibliography.
- Bakunin: God and the State.
- Kropotkin: Memoires of a Revolutionist.
- Paul Avrich: The modern school movement: anarchism and education in the United States.
- Noam Chomsky: Manufacturing consent.
- Hicks and Tucker: Revolution and reaction: the Paris Commune of 1871.
- Alexander Berkman: Now and after: the ABC of Communist Anarchism.
- Errico Malatesta: Vita e pensieri.
- George Orwell. Homage to Catalonia.
- Oscar Wilde: The soul of man under socialism.
- Toni Negri: Fin de siglo.
- Jeffrey Weeks: Against Nature.
- Leo Bersani: Homos.
- Michel Foucault: Vigilar y Castigar.
History of sexuality.
- Jacques Lacan: Kant with Sade.
- Pat Califia: Public Sex.
- Ricardo Llamas: Teoría Torcida. Prejuicios y discursos en torno a "la homosexualidad".
- Judith Butler: Bodies that matter.
- Rosi Braidotti: Nomadic subjects. Embodiment and sexual difference in contemporary feminist theory.
- Luce Irigaray: Ce sexe qui n'en est pas un.
- Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick: Epistemology of the closet.
- Michael Warner (comp.) Fear of a queer planet. Queer politics and social theory.
- Monique Wittig: One is not born a woman.
Please, find attached a writing sample.
The attached writing sample, EL LENGUAJE DEL AMO Y EL LENGUAJE DEL ESCLAVO: LA INSUMISION (MASTER’S LANGUAGE AND SLAVE’S LANGUAGE: CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE) was presented by Javier Sáez in a lecture at the Free University of Maspalomas (Gran Canaria – Canary Islands). The article analyses the origins of the movement against military service (the so called "insumisión" movement –civil disobedience against the draft-), and it shows the reasons, strategies, and results of the movement, which was an essential part of libertarian activism in the 90’s in Spain. A movement’s achievement was the end of military service in Spain. More than 500 young people suffered jail sentences of 2 years in Spain during that struggle.
This article was published in the book CRITICA DEL LENGUAJE ORDINARIO, Ediciones Libertarias, 1993.
APPLICATION FEE:
Please, find enclosed 20 $ for application fee and the post costs.