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In various contexts of social, political, and cultural exclusion, queer people confront the possibility of their immediate eradication as well as mechanisms designed to prevent their existence in the future. Systemic opposition to queer replication exists in almost every cultural setting. Nevertheless, queer individuals and communities often manage to get through, overcoming challenges to their proliferation and vibrancy.

Scholars in literary criticism have begun to theorize “queer futurity” in light of these difficulties and have arrived at diverse conclusions about how queer people should conceive of themselves in the present and imagine their future. Some scholars celebrate possibility and hope; others embrace death and extinction.

This panel seeks to inject a dose of reality into queer studies by offering ethnographic presentations of queer futurity, broadly conceived. Anthropology stands to contribute significant insights to the question of how queer people and communities around the world understand time, its passing, and their own existence.

Possible papers might explore queer parenthood, strategic political movements, utopic community-building, memorialization, historiography and historical production, and other areas, and papers are not limited to ethnographies of the hopeful. Ethnographic realism will guide the panel’s production.

In addition, papers could confront a variety of important theoretical issues, such as the following:

• What constitutes “community”?
• What constitutes “the individual”?
• Does futurity imply linear models of time and history?
• How has the globalization of queer discourse affected local temporal and sexual epistemologies?