Queens of the desert: the digital practices of Arab MSM

Potential, repression and power have emerged as themes foundational to the academic oeuvre seeking to explore the identities of Arab men who have sex with men (Arab MSM); resulting in cultural and academic conceptions of Arab desiring identities that are orientated in relation to Western formations and critiques. This thesis intervenes on the field by proposing a ‘third way’ necessary to academic critique that is informed by the lived experiences of Arab MSM living in the Gulf region of the Arabian Peninsula. In our analyses of both qualitative and empirical data, the Arab MSM is centred in the text as we are afforded valuable insight on the rich interiority of our subjects’ lives, and their resultant conceptions of self. By exploring these mediations of self with their identities, practices, gender, politics, and other such articulations within both global and local contexts we move past reductive discursive narratives surrounding conceptions of Arab MSM in the field of post-colonial studies. Thereby capturing a snapshot of how Arab MSM are conceiving of, expressing and inhabiting their personhood today.