Blog #3, Page 28

All words, and there meanings are contextual. This is because language is constructed by societies, for use in that particular society. Words are meaningless, or one could say, have unlimited meanings, until society attaches a meaning, and gives a context for them. Take for example, The Kama Sutra. In western society, or more specifically, the society of Grand Rapids, Mi, if one asked the question, “What is the Kama Sutra?”, the answer would be along the lines of, “a book on sexual positions”. But to anyone who has read the Kama Sutra, from an academic standpoint, will give you a very different explanation.
Although the Kama Sutra has sections pertaining to sexual activity, sections on the three aims of life, Virtue (dharma), Prosperity (artha), and love (Kama), encompass a majority of the book. To societies with Hindu beliefs, the Kama Sutra is an important commentary on older works, and an essential text in Hinduism. To my hometown of GR, the words Karma Sutra bring up thoughts of pornography. With that contextual difference in the two societies, those two words are both hated and respected.

So in reference to the term “Queer”, I think we see the same problem of context. When a homosexual individual speaks the word queer, I have seen it used in both a positive and negative way through the use of context. Similarly, with the author function in mind, if the people hearing or reading a straight person’s thoughts have prior knowledge of the writer’s or speaker’s views on homosexuality, meaning is partly constructed on that that alone. In terms of how one may use the term Queer, especially if one is not such, I enjoy Michel Foucault’s ideas about exclusion within a discourse. “In a society such as our own we all know the rules of exclusion. The most obvious and familiar of these concerns what is prohibited. We know perfectly well that we are not free to say just anything, that we cannot simply speak of anything, when we like or where we like; not just anyone, finally, may speak of anything. We have three types of prohibition, covering objects, ritual with its surrounding circumstances, the privileged or exclusive right to speak of a particular subject; these prohibitions interrelate, reinforce and complement each other, forming a complex web, continually subject to modification.” (The Archaeology of Knowledge, Michel Foucault, pg. 216)

So how does a word become reappropriated? I feel it is through a change in the general outlook of a society. A lot has changed since the 50’s in the realm of civil rights. With the African American and woman’s movements, ideas about other types of cultures within our country where revisited in stride.