Sociology, coloniality and heterosexuality

Sociology has studied heterosexuality as an institution, as discourse, as practices, as behaviours and as identities while overlooking anti-colonial scholarship that contemplates its role in coloniality. This chapter looks at mainstream (white) sociological studies of heterosexuality in comparison with thinking from Black, Indigenous and anti-colonial scholars. To do so, it offers an overview of historic, feminist queer and sociological analyses of heterosexuality. It tracks an intellectual course that moves thinking on heterosexuality from innate to contractual and compulsory to complex, various and every day. Then, it looks at key thinking on heterosexuality from Black Studies, anti-colonial feminism and Indigenous queer studies. This comparison highlights the similar timelines and the marginalisation of Black, Indigenous and anti-colonial scholarship in studies of heterosexuality. The chapter concludes by querying sociology's aversion to anti-colonial and interdisciplinary analysis.