A Pragmatic Methodology for the (Queer) Self

My inquiry is how to conceptualize the self, taking LGBTIA+ lives as the starting point for theorizing. My hypothesis is twofold: first, that pragmatism’s social self not only accommodates, but encourages queerness; and second, that when we apply the social self to queer contexts, we thereby queer the self. Both concepts — queerness and the social self — affirm the significance of our social environment in constraining and enabling the subjects they engender. They also both acknowledge the reciprocity of this relationship; selves can de- and re-construct the social. When queer and pragmatic lexicons converge, we realize that to be a self at all is to be queer. That is, the social nature of the self means that it can destabilize the very social institutions and relations that enable, guide, and constrain its projects; we bear the potential to queer the norms that situate and define us.