Queering Striated Food Politics: Tropical Postg(l)ocal Precarity in Romesh Gunesekera’s Reef

Abstract

The inoperativity of striated narratives of food politics stands caught up by patriarchal practices of identity formation entailing codification of different sexualities in terms of ‘rigid’ territories and strata and therefore cannot but conform to the irresistible snares of tropical postg(l)ocal precarity embodied by the disseminating strands of neoliberal capitalism. It thus calls for the actualization of queering to decimate ‘rigid segmentarities’ of striated food politics, which seeks to work in tandem with the territorializing movements of tropical postg(l)ocal precarity backed by the structures of patriarchal normativity. Queering striated food politics in the context of Sri Lanka strikes up an epistemic departure from the practices of culinary stratification of sexualities and eventually takes up rhizomatic movements both to call the nuanced liaisons between striated food politics and tropical postg(l)ocal precarity into question and suggest a ‘smooth politics’ in the form of a nomadic ‘war machine’. Queering striated food politics thus entails a strong resistance against the patriarchal culinary incarcerations of sexualities, taking substantial recourse to Romesh Gunesekera’s novel Reef.

Keywords

• Queering
• Straited Food Politics
• Post(g)local Precarity
• Smooth Politics
• War Machine
• Tropicality