Romani Lgbtiq People and Queer Intersectionalities

This paper will consider the contested and tense relationship between queer assemblages (Puar 2007) and intersectionality. Using the lived experiences of Romani LGBTIQ people and referring to Yekani et al.’s (2010) concept of queer interdependencies, this paper will contribute to the ongoing debate about intersectionality and queer assemblages – two concepts which are often examined separately – by proposing to employ queer intersectionalities (Fremlova, forthcoming) in order to help generate insight into queer intersectional identities and identifications. Queer intersectionalities allow us to identify and interrogate the workings of the interlocking axes of inequality sitting at the root of asymmetrical hegemonic power relations whilst not assuming the supremacy of one axis over the other, hence not re-inscribing marked essentialist ethnic/racial, sexual, gender and/or other difference embedded within and constitutive of social norms, orthodoxies, and binaries. Simultaneously, employing queer intersectionalities benefits understandings of identities and identifications as rhizomic fluid becomings that are not anchored in the notion of fixed ‘groupness’ or essentialist difference. This ultimately means that queer intersectionalities allow for an important reconceptualisation of Romani identities and identifications that dismantles norms and normativities, thus doing away with marked essentialist difference that has tended to fix and stabilise Romani identities and identifications across space and time.