‘Happy as in Queer’ – The Affective Paradoxes of Queer Families

Abstract

The restrictive legal and political regulations of queer families in Switzerland provide the basis of this article. Within this context, Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals, Transgender and Queers (LGBTQ) aim to have their families recognized through the public mediation of affects such as happiness. Consequently, the author attends to the affective politics of imagining and living families by LGBTQ. The author draws upon ethnographic data to explore how happiness structures modes of relatedness in terms of family. With an affect theory stance, the article turns to two case studies which allow to apply and eventually extend Sara Ahmed’s concept of the family as a ‘promise of happiness’ (Ahmed 2010a). By means of the case studies, the author elaborates on how queer families are linked to a normalized, heteronormative figure of ‘the family,’ as well as to dissident modes of relatedness. An affect theory-based analysis leads the author finally to challenge the contrasting juxtaposition of normalized and dissident politics of LGBTQ by concluding that such politics of affects blur the lines between assimilationist versus resisting politics and have to be understood as paradoxical.