Shifting Positionings and Queer Time at the Precipice of Apocalypse

This commentary on Kath Browne and Catherine Nash's paper 'From hegemonic to where?', considers the 'between-ness' and precarious ephemerality of queer life at the precipice of apocalypse. Substantively, the commentary critically addresses three of Browne and Nash's key themes, which they develop according to a queer ontology. These are: (a) temporality, and the notions of nonlinearity and reversibility; (b) the unsteadiness and precarity of 'between-ness' and the radical openness it allows; and finally, (c) the complex and dynamic, sometimes contradictory, understandings and positionalities of [hetero]activism and resistances. This commentary lauds Browne and Nash's significant contribution to greater understandings of these socio-cultural complexities. The paper demonstrates poignantly how a queer framework can broaden understanding of hegemony and marginality; power, spatiality and gender; and the negotiation of intersectional identities. The commentary also offers a few provocations about just how much room the blurry 'in-between' can be given at this critical socio-political moment.