Queer Property,Queer Persons: Self-Ownership and Beyond

Abstract

The primary focus of this article is the relationship between property and personality with reference to the specific form of transgression offered by queer theory, that is, transgression of the conventional boundaries of sexual identity and desire. Feminists have strongly challenged the gendered nature of personal relations expressed through property - the association of masculinity with the position of proprietor and femininity with the position of object of property, which in its turn relies upon a fixed opposition between subject and object. It is argued here that attention to certain aspects of queer theory and praxis offers a further ground of critique and the potential for reconfiguration of these fundamental relationships.