Queer Sovereignties: Reiminagining Sexual Citizenship from the Dutch Caribbean

This paper is a theoretical re-imagination of sexual citizenship through an engagement with the cultural practices of the Curaçaoan-born theater-maker Fridi Martina. I discuss how her articulation of ideas about sexuality contribute to broader theoretical and collective political efforts to radically re-imagine so-called “queer” politics. That is, a critique of heteronormativity as well as an intersectional analysis that brings into focus axes of sexuality, class, gender, and race. I argue that the particular political situation of the Dutch Caribbean, neither independent nor officially a colony, but a form of strategic and neo-colonial entanglement with the former metropolis, is a start where we might conceptualize what I term queer sovereignties. The chapter interweaves two different materials. First, an analysis of interviews with Martina that critiques the epistemology of sexual identity. Second, a close reading of Martina’s performance Siegu pa Kolo (Papiamentu for Colorblind, 1978) that contends we should combat racism and colorism independently and synchronously. Through this material I foreground a re-imagination of sexual citizenship that critiques not only the heterosexualization and masculinization of the state but also considers how colonialism, imperialism, and their effects dictate the socioeconomic lives of Black queer people.