Identity: Intersectionality of Queer and Postcoloniality in Selected 21st Century Indian Children’s Fiction

The intersection of Postcolonial and Queer theory can be directed towards their sustained interaction with contemporary politics of identity, including reflection on the categories and institutions, as well as the knowledge(s) and power plays through which social dynamics and people are structured and regulated, and how such dimensions impacted literature. Beyond this, and especially in its intersection with postcolonial studies, the destabilising effect of Queer theory, which subverts self-evident notions of power and marginality, centre and periphery, can be explored. A number of key connections between Queer and Postcolonial theory include epistemological and hermeneutical considerations; difference; marginality; agency; mimicry; and the quest for a new world order. As such Queer and Postcolonial theories both resist the tendency to think of identity as a collection of distinct categories (meaning they don't affect other identities) to which you either belong or don't. Rather, they concentrate on the intersectionality of identities to better understand how race is sexualized or gendered, or how disability is racialized or classed. Both theories argue that these identity categories are not inherent, universal, or "natural," instead critique state, national, and imperial powers, as well as colonial histories of dominance, for their construction while maintaining that they were a priori to colonial or state interventions, discourses, violence, and ideologies. The search for the texts yielded in few results as the resources were very scarce in the area of Indian Children’s literature with specific focus on the intersectionality of Queer and Post Coloniality. This paper thus aims to understand Postcolonial and Queer theory's concern with identity and reject binaries against marginalised bodies and cultures in Indian Children’s Literature before concluding with the importance of how literature on these issues include diversity.