Being Queer, Being Secular, Being Activist: Emotions, the Secular Self and the Struggle for the Public Space in Georgia

What are the connections between the secular and the emotional, and can we talk about secular feelings? In recent years scholars interested in the study of secularity have started to pay more attention to the affective and emotional aspects of the secular (Scheer, Johansen and Fadil 2019), stressing the importance of examining the secular not solely through its political dimensions but also through its sensory, aesthetic, and embodied dispositions (Fadil and Fernando 2015).

Building on this growing body of literature, my contribution reconstructs the emotional and embodied dispositions of the secular as they merge with political developments in the life stories of LGBTQI+ activists in Georgia. Their biographies unfold in a societal context where the influential Christian Orthodox Church and the dominant political discourses construct the figure of the queer as “the other” and the enemy of the national body.

In my analysis of biographical experiences and meaning-making of activism based on narrative interviews with LGBTQI+ activists in Georgia, I focus on three key points. First, I contend that the secular self is not a natural or an inherent state but a project. Second, I show that in specific contexts where sexuality is at stake the project of the secular self emerges distinctly as an articulation of emotions, politics and ethics. Third, I argue that the secular self as a project should be analyzed with regard to specific contexts, i.e. external societal and historical factors and their internalization in terms of biographical experiences.