Queer Roots for the Diaspora: Ghosts in the Family Tree

Employing rootedness as a way of understanding identity has increasingly been subjected to acerbic political and theoretical critiques. Politically, roots narratives have been criticized for attempting to police identity through a politics of purity-excluding anyone who doesn't share the same narrative. Theoretically, a critique of essentialism has led to a suspicion against essence and origins regardless of their political implications.

The central argument of Queer Roots for the Diaspora...