Introduction -- Kissing cousins : queerness, crime, and knowing -- Seeing sexuality like a state -- Forensic psychology, complicit expertise, and the legitimation of law -- Insurgent expertise and the hybrid network of LGBTQ asylum -- Asylum seekers and signs of queerness -- Sex offenders and the detection of deviance -- Queer subjects and the construction of risky countries -- Sexual predators and the constitution of dangerous individuals -- Conclusion : sexuality, science, and citizenship in the twenty-first century.
Summary:
"This book braves a juxtaposition that might at first raise some eyebrows. Sorting Sexualities examines the legal management of sex offenders in sexually violent predator (SVP) trials alongside that of LGBTQ people seeking asylum from persecution in their home countries. Though these legal settings are diametrically opposed-one a punitive assessment, the other a protective one-they present a similar and telling conundrum: how do we know someone's sexuality? In both cases, state institutions are tasked with determining subjects' "true" sexualities, measuring the degree and type of "underlying deviance," and sorting the queer from the fraudulent. Stefan Vogler examines how and why the measurement and classification techniques that have emerged as a guide have come to diverge so dramatically. By delving into the histories behind these classification practices and analyzing their impact, Vogler shows how the science of sexuality is far more central to state power than we realize. Through legal analysis, interviews, and multi-sited ethnography, he examines how the state enrolls non-state experts-typically anthropologists, sociologists, and lawyers in asylum pleas, and psychiatrists and forensic psychologists in SVP trials-to help craft classificatory schemas that render sexual "others" legible to and thus manageable by the state. These classifications have led to the extension of rights for LGBTQ people, on the one hand, and the escalation of punishment for sex criminals, on the other"-- Provided by publisher.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.