Nacionalismo para quem?: uma análise genealógica do pinkwashing israelense

Abstract

After decades of struggles and socio-political demands led by LGBT+ movements, at the domestic and international level, some States have not only started to guarantee certain legal rights and protections, but have also adopted a new way of evaluating how inclusive, tolerant and democratic a State is, based on its position towards the LGBT+ community. In this context, some States have started to use “pinkwashing”, that is, a mechanism characterized by the promotion of a pro-LGBT+ image and narrative, with the objective of covering up and “washing” certain actions considered problematic and negative in the International System. The State of Israel is the main promoter of this mechanism, used in order to divert the attention of the International System from its violent stance towards the Palestinian people. However, there is evidence that this supposed inclusion of LGBT+ individuals occurs in a shallow and superficial way, since it does not guarantee the same visibility and opportunities for all individuals who make up this acronym. In view of this situation, the research problem that guides this master's thesis is: how does the insertion of the LGBT + population into the Israeli nationalist project occur? The general objective here is to develop a genealogical analysis of Israeli pinkwashing, with a view to unveiling and denouncing the homonationalist character of Israel's supposed progressive policy. To this end, the research was carried out under the auspices of the theoretical contributions of the post-structuralist current of thought, as well as the Queer Theory. From post-structuralism, this research works mainly with the conceptions that involve the importance of discursive practices, which impact on the construction of identities and are governed by power relations. In turn, since this research proposes to break down certain dominant narratives involving the LGBT+ community, we also opted for the use of the Queer Theory. Furthermore, post-structuralism also offers us critical proposals for analyzing social “reality”, as is the case with the method of analysis used in this thesis, the genealogy of Foucaultian influence. In order to better structure and achieve this objective, it also has the following specific objectives: (I) to highlight the use of pinkwashing as an image cleaning mechanism in the International System, which in the Israeli context, manifests itself within Brand Israel; (II) expose the queer Palestinian perspective on Israeli pinkwashing, and; (III) demonstrate the inconsistencies in the narrative that Israel is a State that guarantees equal and full rights to its LGBT+ citizens, as well as to queer Palestinians residing in Israel. Based on the collected and analyzed literature, the research assumes that the State of Israel promotes its image, in the International System, as a homogeneously tolerant and inclusive space for the LGBT+ population (both Israeli and Palestinian). However, from the analysis made, it is argued that only LGBT+ individuals who conform to the dominant standards and norms of Israeli society are actually incorporated into Israel's nationalist project.