| Summary/Abstract |
This article studies the relationship between care, family connectivity and queer selfhood in a Muslim-majority context. Based on fieldwork in Amman, Jordan, the article explores how queer people find themselves in demanding circumstances figuring out how to care for—and be responsible to—their family members, whilst caring for themselves at the same time. Drawing partly on Suad Joseph’s patriarchal connectivity and Lotte Meinert and Lone Grøn’s contagious kinship connections, I argue that if we are to understand queer selfhood in Jordanian and other Arab, Muslim-majority contexts in more nuance, we need to look at the relations and emotions at stake in care. Through selected ethnographic cases—in particular one that deals with heartaches—we take a closer look at how queer selfhood is constituted in response to, and up against care and control dynamics in the family. This exposes the interrelated and emotionally contagious qualities of kinship, sexuality and gender. It moves us beyond an understanding of queer subjectivities at the margins of a Muslim community, and towards an understanding of what care and queer selfhood in Muslim and Arab contexts also involves becoming through the hands and hearts of others.
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