Document Type
Articles
Abstract
Leadership shapes our world, our narratives, and what is possible to imagine. Unfortunately, leadership studies has some trouble imagining queer leadership, or rather, queer theory and leadership studies. In order to integrate the more abstract aspects of queer theory with the largely evidence-based field of leadership studies, I draw on the texts, history, practices, and theory of queer anarchism. This article aims to highlight a gap in leadership studies as it currently stands, and through accounting for the absence of queer anarchism in leadership studies, expand what leadership looks like. To this end, I suggest the framing of ‘leadership acts’ (drawn from Joseph Raelin’s leadership activities) to reflect the integration of the anarchist approach of prefiguration and the utopian impulse while maintaining space for autonomous, anonymous, or non-triumphant leadership actions. I explore the potential of using the frame of leadership acts in understanding mutual aid projects, characteristics and approaches of queer anarchist networks and other leaderless movements, radical queer insurrectionary manifestos, and autonomous anti-state and anti-consumerism queer activist projects. Finally, using the work of José Esteban Muñoz, this paper suggests that in order to truly queer leadership, we must first account for desire as a leading force that animates efforts toward creating a better world.
Recommended Citation
Holland, Josie
(2024)
"Leading Towards the Queerest Insurrection: Queer Anarchism and Leadership Studies,"
Interdisciplinary Journal of Leadership Studies: Vol. 3, Article 1.
Available at:
https://scholarship.richmond.edu/ijls/vol3/iss1/1