Nee, wij zijn geen zussen. Een queer pad bewandelen met Sara Ahmed

This essay analyzes the complexities of a seemingly innocuous situation, namely when lesbian couples are asked whether they are sisters, with the help of Sara Ahmed’s contribution to queer theory. Ahmed shows such sister-confusion to be situated in a compulsory heterosexual world wherein queer movements become disorientating. To solve such disorientation, queers get ‘straightened’ in everyday encounters: a couple is dismissed as sisters, for example. Staying with disorientation, however, and lingering in the ‘queer moment’, can foster insight into how a heterosexual orientation is organized in daily life rather than ‘natural’. Ahmed argues that any ‘strange’ movement holds such potential to address the coercion that lies behind dominant orientations – not only heterosexuality but also, for example, whiteness. From this insight follows a choice between reproducing dominant paths or exploring different ones instead. Put differently, and in the spirit of Bonnie Honig, the figure of the stranger can open up our world. Whereas the sister-confusion poses a ‘hail’ to stay ‘in line’ with heterosexuality as a dominant orientation, Ahmed encourages us not to turn around in response and get stuck in its lines, but rather to continue exploring where else we might go.