Queer identity in performance in Northern Ireland

Queer theory provides a poststructuralist paradigm that unsettles any binary structures in the analysis of gender and sexuality in social, historical and cultural studies. Its disruptive analysis can also be harnessed to subvert the outwardly dysfunctional sectarian binary in Northern Irish society by critiquing the construction of identities.

I explore this localised interpretation of queer and argue for a re-evaluation through a ‘queer reading’ (or ‘queering’) of recent Northern Irish cultural/theatrical history, contending that this geographically particular reading of queerness can place it as a desegregated identity exemplar. The practice portion of the thesis then stages this desegregating queer agency and explores its potentials for cultural comment and critical reordering.<br><br>I approach the research as a scholar and a theatre practitioner, with the result that the thesis is undertaken and organised as a 60% written dissertation along with 40% creative practice.