Gender Order and Compulsory Heteronormativity: a Theoretical Contribution of the Queer Political Economy

Abstract

This article briefly reconstructs the theoretical dialogue between political economy and queer theory and emphasizes how economic processes and economic policies may be analyzed through a queer perspective. It suggests some reflections on the connection between the transformation of the gender order in the European Union and the risk of reproduction of a heteronormative matrix starting from the analysis of the gendered economic effects of the austerity policies occurred during post global crisis. In so doing, this contribution explores a theoretical key to understand the relationship between economic and cultural sphere and it tries to show the necessity to get inside the hidden effects of the economics of austerity.

Keywords: heteronormativity, austerity policies, feminist and queer economics