Fraught Intimacies

Nathan Rambukkana is an assistant professor in communication studies at Wilfrid Laurier University. His work centres on the study of discourse, politics, and identities, and his research addresses topics such as hashtag publics, mixed-race representation, digital intimacies, intimate privilege, and non/monogamy in the public sphere. He is also the editor of the collection Hashtag Publics: The Power and Politics of Discursive Networks (Peter Lang Press, forthcoming). He blogs at http://complexsingularities.net.

• Preface: Chasing Non/MonogamyIntroduction: Non/Monogamy and Intimacy in the Public Sphere1 The Space of (Intimate) Privilege2 The Adultery Industry: Autonomous Space, Heteronormativity, and Neoliberal Cheating3 Mapping Polygamy: Discourse, Reterritorialization, and Plural Marriage4 The Fraught Promise of Polyamory: New Intimate Ethics or Heterotopian Enclave?Conclusion: Non-Monogamies and the Space of DiscourseAppendix: Canada's Criminal Code (C.26) Statutes on Bigamy and PolygamyNotesReferencesIndex

Undoing Monogamy and Fraught Intimacies both attempt ambitious theoretical interventions into the study of intimacy, and are indispensable resources to those already engaged in the study of non/monogamies. Through the diversity of their archives and the breadth of their thoroughly intersectional critiques, Rambukkana and Willey demonstrate that the contemporary study of non/monogamy does not, and cannot, proceed in isolation. In their discussions of non/monogamy as it appears in colonialism, border control, life sciences, comic strips and the law, these two very different books demonstrate the diverse pleasures of intellectual promiscuity. - Jessica Kean, University of Sydney (Australian Feminist Studies, Vol. 31 No. 90, March 2017) Rambukkana's study covers wide ground and is unusual for its relational and inter-textual analysis. His discussion not only highlights differences, but much common discursive ground across which different styles of intimacy are constructed. Rambukkana explores communalities, even if they may be uncomfortable and brush against the grain of cherished taken-for-granted wisdoms. Truly impressive is Rambukkana's consistency in working along intersectional lines of inquiry, thereby enriching polyamory scholarship with an approach that is attentive to race, class and gender perspectives.- C. Klesse (Sexualities)