퀴어링 소시올로지: 사회학과 섹슈얼리티, 퀴어 이론의 경합과 성장

초록

This article examines the relationships between/among sociology, queer theory, and sexuality theory. Recently in Korea, sexual minorities and sexual identity issues are actively raised. However, there is little academic and practical interest in Korean sociology and lack of understanding of academic genealogy on sexuality theory embedded in Sociology. Sexuality is one of the main social organizers associated with social power relations. Sexism and heterosexism can not exist independently, but work in conjunction with various mechanisms of social inequality such as gender, class, race, age, and so on. In this sense, this article, as starting from the problem of classical sociology, examines the various sociological theories such as symbolic interaction theory, stigma theory, script theory, and social constructivism in sex minority which have impacted both on theories and on social change. The relationship between queer theory and sociology is explored as well, tracing the Western movement history and theory. Despite long ignorance in the discipline in Sociology, some sociologists have been interested in the sexual identity constituted in the socio-cultural context, criticizing the perspective of homosexuality as pathological condition, illness, or abnormal behavior. Having keen relationship with the contemporary movement, they have questioned the ‘natural’ desire, constantly challenged heterosexualism and sexism within/outside of academia, and reconstructed the ideas of gender and sexuality as social constructs. They have made a great contribution to the opening of the politics of knowledge and difference(s) which deconstructed the modern sexual categories and binary boundary of homosexual/ heterosexual. Through discussions on the fruitful resources of sexual imagination provided by sociology, we seek to raise the necessity and possibility of sexuality research in Korean sociology.

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