Methodological potential of explanatory models of the world-system approach in human research (on the example of Christopher Chitty's concept of sexual hegemony)

The subject of this study is the process of developing theoretical tools of the world-systems approach in the field of human studies, using K. Chitty's concept of sexual hegemony as an example. The basic problematics of the world-system approach is in the field of macro-processes. The micro-level of societal reality is often inaccessible to the world-system optics. However, relying on the ontology of macro-processes inherent in the world-system approach, the followers of this paradigm complete theoretical constructions by synthesis with intermediate models of other concepts, improving the world-system optics according to the subject under study. In the work of C. Chitty there is such a refinement of theory. Moreover, the emphasis on the economic sphere, intrinsic to the world-system approach as a branch of Marxism, precludes the attainment of an ontology of the human being, since contemporary research is compelled to shift the focus to the household. In his study of human ontology, К. Citty draws on another crucial set of world-system ideas, encapsulated in the concept of the «hegemony of geoculture». К. Citty analyzes the socio-economic sources of Western queer culture and the reasons for its politicization in the core of the world-system on the basis of a synthesis of the concept of cycles of development of the world system by G. Arrighi, the idea of class hegemony by A. Gramsci and the ideas of culture and the nature of human sexuality in the psychoanalysis of Z. Freud. Citty's research focuses on the mechanisms of state and social control of queer cultural representatives in European history since the XV century. He explains the processes of politicization of sexuality in the central, time-shifting nodal points of the world system (the Mediterranean, Holland, England, and the United States) during its crises. The conclusions emphasize that the innovation of C. Chitty's methodology lies in the fact that he creates a theoretical construct that allows us to see human sexuality in the totality of factors of different levels of societal reality. The theoretical constructs proposed by K. Chitty can be useful. Citty's theoretical constructs can be useful for understanding the clash between political power and representatives of queer culture in the context of destructive world-system processes that are gaining momentum.

world-system approach, Marxism, psychoanalysis, hegemony, geoculture, sexuality, social crises, political power, history of sexuality, societal reality