Reading Border through Desire: Queer Indigenous Theory, Nordic Settler Colonialism, and Trans Aesthetics
Abstract This article examines the Swedish fantasy-horror-romance film Gräns (Border, dir. Ali Abbasi, 2018) through queer Indigenous thought and the notion of trans aesthetics, exploring how the film may sensitize its viewers to seeing and feeling with gender variance, queer desire, and the trauma...
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crdukeunivpr:10.1215/02705346-10772589 2024-06-02T08:14:06+00:00 Reading Border through Desire: Queer Indigenous Theory, Nordic Settler Colonialism, and Trans Aesthetics Kyrölä, Kata 2023 http://dx.doi.org/10.1215/02705346-10772589 https://read.dukeupress.edu/camera-obscura/article-pdf/38/3%20(114)/77/2030421/77kyrola.pdf en eng Duke University Press Camera Obscura volume 38, issue 3, page 77-105 ISSN 0270-5346 1529-1510 journal-article 2023 crdukeunivpr https://doi.org/10.1215/02705346-10772589 2024-05-07T13:15:38Z Abstract This article examines the Swedish fantasy-horror-romance film Gräns (Border, dir. Ali Abbasi, 2018) through queer Indigenous thought and the notion of trans aesthetics, exploring how the film may sensitize its viewers to seeing and feeling with gender variance, queer desire, and the trauma of settler colonialism. Drawing on Eve Tuck's call for desire-based research, the article asks what is at stake in queer, trans, and decolonial readings of films that are not necessarily identifiable as such at the surface level. Border centers on a love story between two gender-fluid trolls who pass as human and whose kin have been subjected to genocide, dislocation, and mutilation, but the film's reception largely misses the connection to the treatment of Indigenous Sámi people and transgender people within Nordic settler states. The article argues that Border's ecstatic depiction of gender-fluid desires, bodies, and sex, alongside its examination of the psychic consequences of settler colonial violence, make it a thus far unique film in the Nordic context — even though this examination happens through the distancing effect of trolls as metaphorical Natives. The main characters embody wrongness in the settler nation-state, in heteronormative society, and ultimately in the delimiting category of the human, but the film imagines rightness in nature as a queer, gender-fluid space where all creatures can just be. Through employing notions of trans aesthetics, the (non)sovereign erotic, refusal, and haunting, the article proposes desire-based readings of cinema that envision ways of feeling and existing beyond humancentric, settler, binary notions of gender and sexuality. Article in Journal/Newspaper Sámi Duke University Press Camera Obscura 38 3 77 105 |
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Abstract This article examines the Swedish fantasy-horror-romance film Gräns (Border, dir. Ali Abbasi, 2018) through queer Indigenous thought and the notion of trans aesthetics, exploring how the film may sensitize its viewers to seeing and feeling with gender variance, queer desire, and the trauma of settler colonialism. Drawing on Eve Tuck's call for desire-based research, the article asks what is at stake in queer, trans, and decolonial readings of films that are not necessarily identifiable as such at the surface level. Border centers on a love story between two gender-fluid trolls who pass as human and whose kin have been subjected to genocide, dislocation, and mutilation, but the film's reception largely misses the connection to the treatment of Indigenous Sámi people and transgender people within Nordic settler states. The article argues that Border's ecstatic depiction of gender-fluid desires, bodies, and sex, alongside its examination of the psychic consequences of settler colonial violence, make it a thus far unique film in the Nordic context — even though this examination happens through the distancing effect of trolls as metaphorical Natives. The main characters embody wrongness in the settler nation-state, in heteronormative society, and ultimately in the delimiting category of the human, but the film imagines rightness in nature as a queer, gender-fluid space where all creatures can just be. Through employing notions of trans aesthetics, the (non)sovereign erotic, refusal, and haunting, the article proposes desire-based readings of cinema that envision ways of feeling and existing beyond humancentric, settler, binary notions of gender and sexuality. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Kyrölä, Kata |
spellingShingle |
Kyrölä, Kata Reading Border through Desire: Queer Indigenous Theory, Nordic Settler Colonialism, and Trans Aesthetics |
author_facet |
Kyrölä, Kata |
author_sort |
Kyrölä, Kata |
title |
Reading Border through Desire: Queer Indigenous Theory, Nordic Settler Colonialism, and Trans Aesthetics |
title_short |
Reading Border through Desire: Queer Indigenous Theory, Nordic Settler Colonialism, and Trans Aesthetics |
title_full |
Reading Border through Desire: Queer Indigenous Theory, Nordic Settler Colonialism, and Trans Aesthetics |
title_fullStr |
Reading Border through Desire: Queer Indigenous Theory, Nordic Settler Colonialism, and Trans Aesthetics |
title_full_unstemmed |
Reading Border through Desire: Queer Indigenous Theory, Nordic Settler Colonialism, and Trans Aesthetics |
title_sort |
reading border through desire: queer indigenous theory, nordic settler colonialism, and trans aesthetics |
publisher |
Duke University Press |
publishDate |
2023 |
url |
http://dx.doi.org/10.1215/02705346-10772589 https://read.dukeupress.edu/camera-obscura/article-pdf/38/3%20(114)/77/2030421/77kyrola.pdf |
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Sámi |
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Sámi |
op_source |
Camera Obscura volume 38, issue 3, page 77-105 ISSN 0270-5346 1529-1510 |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1215/02705346-10772589 |
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Camera Obscura |
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38 |
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3 |
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77 |
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105 |
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1800737812361773056 |