“Queer in the City” Dossier Part 1 – Introduction

This blogpost by Gustavo Rigon is part 1 of a four-part dossier on “Queer in the City”. 

Introduction

Image: UCL, “Queering Urbanism: thinking climate change through queer time” lecture, 2023[1]

Queer (being) in the city

How can the city be observed through queer lenses? What bodies, subjectivities, epistemologies, and politics may we encounter from a queer perspective on (and emerging from within) the city?

What do we mean when using the term “queer”? With a multifaceted meaning, queer is commonly understood as an umbrella term for LGBTQ+ individuals. As an umbrella term, queer is often used in western political discourses and culture to refer to social beings that feel oppressed by their gender or sexual choices. However, it becomes clear that queer as an umbrella term may homogenise specific social power relations amongst those sexual identities’ experiences, as it pertains to other identity and material markers, such as race, class, and mobility. Therefore, what firstly is relevant of queer as a term is not its use as a demarcation of a sexual identity, but more interestingly, how individuals develop their subject construction, where specific personal details, environments, and experiences relevant to our orientations in space and time and, forming who we are. In the last decades, studies on performativity and body agency question the idea of identity, expanding it to the context.

Nikki Sullivan, in the chapter “Queer: a question of being or a question of doing?” (2019), explores ideas about queer as socially constructed: “Is it an attitude, an identity, a particular approach to politics?” [2]. In the context of this dossier, and following David Halperin definition, “queer” demarcates a positionality that is at odds and in friction with how the naturalized hetero and homonormativity[3] has organised and shaped gendered, sexualized and racialised urban individuals, institutions, and politics[4]. Thus, queer goes beyond sexual identity, expanding its meaning to a community and global scales. Here, queer (beings) requires the practice of queer (doings).

In addition to identity and political positionality, queer behaves as an anti-identity[5] as well. It is precisely in the idea of non-identification that the power of queerness resides. In this way, a space that is not sociality or culturally dominant is formed, as a site of engagement, contestation, and imagination of possibilities within and beyond normativity that shapes our surroundings. Identities, contestations, and imaginations slide through and are formed within, dominant social dynamics that take shape through specific environments, sites, and formations. Thus, queer sparks different meanings in different geographical, economic, and cultural contexts, as much as urban structures differ according to transformations through time.

Queer (doing) spaces

According to the urban researcher Stephany Pincetl (2017), cities transform land as they expand, and leave it contaminated as cities contract. Although cities cover only two percent of the world’s land surface, they consume over seventy-five percent of the earth’s material resources^[6]. Given how they concentrate human activity, cities become ecosystems of human and non-human experiences. To start, what we call “the city” is explored by [UI] in the special issue “Urban interfaces: between object, concept, and cultural practice”. Here, the authors present the city as:

a material setting assembling bodies and objects in time and space, a medium forging connections between entities by acting as a platform for communication, memory-making and exchange, and as a stage for performing and effectuating specific identities, subjectivities and differences, and instigating transformations[7]

This dossier aims to explore what emerges from a queer perspective within this material setting, medium and stage that is the urban. The urban, in my perspective, comprehends the environment in a broad sense, both cultural and material, encompassing both sensations and perceptions of a queer body in the specific context of the city. According to Gordon Ingram in the text “Queers in space: Towards a theory of landscape and sexual orientation” (1993), social categories/modes of survival shape our ways of inhabiting and navigating in space. “Evaluation of space must first be based on our needs and desires. Queer observation is then based on the dynamic of exploration of experiences and the persistent imperatives for survival. And the basis for such informed critiques vary radically on the basis of gender, race, class, culture, mobility and individual development.”⁵.

The concern with the current problematics led me to an UCL lecture on “Queering Urbanism: thinking climate change through ideas of time”[8]. Vanesa Broto (2023) cites the idea of the urban as “inhabitation”, which considers that the contemporary human has always been urban. The urban, in this sense, becomes a way of inhabiting the contemporary space and time as a subject being. Urbanization reflects and has strong ties to, the development of modernism, capitalism and historical processes of segregation and accumulation. On the other side, cities are increasingly shared spaces, where community boundaries and the blur of social identities come into being. For the author, inhabitation brings into question on how we can live together despite significant differences.

In order to create a queer space, the question of what one does with “the body” in relationship with an “other”, becomes crucial; both as an analytical term but also as a lens through which a subject comes to explore their surroundings. To help me explore the idea of inhabiting the city, both conceptually and physically through a queer lens, I have adopted Sarah Ahmed’s (2006) “Queer phenomenology” as a philosophical tool and navigator. For Ahmed, Queer phenomenology “emphasizes the importance of lived experience, the intentionality of consciousness, the significance of nearness or what is ready to hand”[9]. In her book Queer Phenomenology: orientations, object and space (2006), Ahmed discusses the concept of “Orientation” which I have found particularly helpful in shaping my research for this dossier. Orientation, taken from “sexual orientation”, explores how “we”, as (queer) bodies, come to reside in space, how we inhabit spaces and who or what we inhabit these spaces with. When we are oriented, Ahmed claims, we know and understand where we are or how to get somewhere. We know “how we begin, how we proceed from ‘here’, which affects how what is ‘there’, appears”[10].This is how we form ‘lines’ in time and space. These “lines” Ahmed claims, we internalize into our lives, influencing how we are oriented physically in space and the directions we may take. In the author’s words: “certain objects are available to us because of lines that we have already taken”[11]. This perspective impacts the way we perceive and engage with what lies ahead of us.

Clearly, within the specific normative social and political configuration of urban spaces, the lines produced by some orientations (be it male, white, heterosexual, ableist) are more dominant than others. Seen as the “right” or “straight” line to follow they inevitably create processes of exclusion, inclusion, participation, representation and meaning. Exploring the queer city means to complicate, clarify, and counteract normativity within an urban context. As such, in this dossier, I invite the reader to follow a series of queer-urban lines that can lead to meaningful deviation or a counterforce to dominant straight lines that suggest that there is only one direction of progress possible.

Queering urban studies

Queer studies agenda exposes frameworks for difference and more authentic alliances between LGBTQ+ individuals, the problems of capitalism, race and class, and the unprecedented and global ecological crisis. While Urban studies concern itself with the question of land, ownership, housing, and planning, it begs the question; where does queer theory fit into these discussions? Queer theory brings a creative agenda to urban studies. Since urban studies are seen as an objective and precise field, queer theory can propose a view on and of the city that considers the queer mundane, moments of enjoyment, transnational solidarity, care and kinship, community and relationship, as well as alternative lived stories – aspects of the urban sometimes deteriorated by the neoliberal mindset that leads our desires.

In response to the question of “queering” urban studies, the special issue “Queering Urban Studies”[12], offers a series of attempts on studying queerness and the urban. This issue demonstrates how categories of gender and sexuality are locatable and spatial, functioning accordingly to social and political transformations in cities. The editor Rivke Jaffe says that queering urban studies departs from questioning dualisms that hierarchize areas and people, such as rural/urban, nature/human, developed/underdeveloped as much as gay/straight, man/women, subject/object, active/passive and so on[13]. Lefebvre (2003) has already suggested that cities have exploded out of the historical space of the city to create worldwide urban society, erasing the qualitative differences between the city and the countryside[14]. Moreover, queering the urban means contesting the direction urban structures takes in relation to late-neoliberal capitalism, xenophobia and racism which configures ideas of progress and development. It suggests imagining “unclassifiable other ways of being, loving, working and creating”[15].This dossier, in a related vein, wishes to explore queerness as a critical lens to analyse concrete urban issues. It also seeks to embrace an exploratory approach to academic and non-academic materials, seeking to position itself as open ended and introductory as well as an asset for readers interested in the connections between queer and urban culture.

Topics and Dialogues

Inspired by Sara Ahmed’s emphasis on the importance of lived experience, besides drawing from my own perspective, I have made ‘live encounters’ an integral part of my writing. The discussion of each topic in this dossier has been informed and inspired by dialogue. In my view, topics often crystallize when subjected to conversations with others, since a person may embody specific traces of experience and knowledge that I have not encountered yet. This approach seeks to cultivate a supportive and activist-oriented queer network of ideas, highlighting the significance of situatedness and the exploration of marginalized and underground practices. The act of engaging in dialogues and making a safe space for contestation resonates with the foundational essence of queer thought.

Starting from my own queer position, by looking at what was near and what I could recognize – people I know, places I have been to before, books I have read – I have tried to remain open to what or who I would encounter. During my research I have allowed connections and directions to emerge, thus allowing this dossier to draw its own “life-time line”, questioning which lines I am making and already oriented towards. The goal has not been to stick to the ‘right’ line but to draw queer perspectives and problematics in similar ways to how one may inhabit and live in urban contexts.

My dialogue partners in this dossier are all part of my current network of research-oriented scholars I connected with during my graduate education between 2022-2023. I started each dialogue with an invitation letter[16] in which I presented my own thoughts about a certain topic in the form of a friendly provocation to open our conversation. In the dossier I combine fragments of these conversations, that I recorded and transcribed, together with other sources of thought and my own thinking.

The first text in this dossier offers a queer exploration of how time is understood and regulated in the modern urban landscape. “Queer Temporalities in the Urban Landscape: challenging normative time structures” is inspired by my dialogue with Gustavo Nogueira. Gustavo lives in Amsterdam and is from Brazil. He is a researcher at Temporary Lab which works at the intersection of time, technology and culture. By exploring the concept of “Queer Temporalities”, this text challenges linear and universal notions of time by questioning how lifetime lines take shape in a capitalist heteronormative urban. I invite the readers to rethink how hegemonic lifetime lines appear in the urban arena as productive and successful.

The second text is titled “Let’s go out? Queer dancefloors and the outside world” and provide an insightful exploration of the multifaceted world of Queer dancefloors in relation to the “outside world” urban. In this context, I share the significance of the queer dancefloor as a space that is more than a place for mere entertainment, but also is a dynamic arena for social experimentation. This text unpacks the transformative potential of queer dance spaces, shedding light on the intricate dynamics between bodies, spaces, and urban environment and its politics. This will be in dialogue with a dear friend Sune Kjeldsen (2023), who lives in Utrecht and is from Denmark. He is a research master student in Gender Studies at Utrecht University, and has authored a paper titled “Choreographing the Future: Queer Dance Events in the Netherlands” (2022).

Lastly, in “Leaning on each other: queer-feminist approaches to urban catastrophes” I explore feminist and queer solidarity within context of the earthquake that hit Turkey in February 2023. More specifically, I explore how the idea of “home”, even in temporary city tents, reaffirm binary gender roles while also promoting feminist grassroots movements that can propose a city otherwise. This will be in dialogue with Jülide Eza Sezer who lives in Utrecht and is herself from Turkey. She is an alumnus in Gender Studies at Utrecht University, and have graduated with the thesis titled “Sustaining Resistance, Cultivating Liberation: The Enduring Bond of Rooted-Resistance-Companionship between Palestinians and Olive Trees” (2023).

Works Cited

Ahmed, Sarah. 2006. Queer Phenomenology Orientations, Objects, Others. Duke University Press.

Halberstam, Jack. 2005. In a queer time and place : transgender bodies, subcultural lives . Queer Temporality: : New York University Press.

Ingram, Gordon Brent. 1993. “Queers in space: Towards a theory of landscape and sexual orientation.” Queer Sites Conference, University of Toronto, May, 1993. The University of British Columbia.

Jaffe, Rivke. n.d. “Introduction Queering Urban Studies.” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research.

de Lange, Michiel, Sigrid Merx, Nanna Verhoeff. 2019. “Urban Interfaces: Media, Art and Performance in Public Spaces.” Leonard Electronic Almanac, Volume 22 Issue 4.

Oswin, Natalie. n.d. “For the city ‘Not yet Here’.” Queering Urban Studies – International Journal Of Urban and Regional Research.

Pincetl, Stephanie. 2017. “Inhabiting a Post-Urban Twenty-First Century.” the nature of cities. https://www.thenatureofcities.com/2017/12/03/inhabiting-post-urban-twenty-first-century/.

Sulivan, Nikki. 2003. “Queer: a question of being or doing?” In A critical introduction to Queer Theory, by Nikki Sulivan. New York University Press.

University of Central London, Faculty of Built Environment. 2023. Queering Urbanism: Thinking climate change through queer ideas of time.Accessed 2024. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYBgsg0A11c.

Wiedlack, Katharina. 2021. “Introduction to Fucking Solidarity: Queering Concepts on/from a Post-Soviet Perspective .” Feminist Critique – East European Journal of Feminist and Queer Studies.

Notes

[1] Image from a UCL lecture, Youtube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYBgsg0A11c, 2023.

[2] Sulivan in A critical introduction to queer theory (New York, 2019), 43.

[3] McRuer refers to the “normal” – normal bodies and relations as the heterosexual abled body identity which queer fails to achieve. Yet, he says “Yet the desire for definitional clarity might unleash more problems than it contains; if it’s hard to deny that something called normalcy exists, it’s even harder to pinpoint what that something is.” (2006, 303). In addition, Halberstam gives to us an example of the way in which critical languages can sometimes weigh us down, consider the fact that we have become adept within postmodernism at talking about “normativity,” but far less adept at describing in rich detail the practices and structures that both oppose and sustain conventional forms of association, belonging, and identification. (2005, 17).

[4] David Halperin (New York, 1995), 65.

[5] Historically, in the English context, the word queer was first used as a slur to refer to poor and dangerous areas of the city; “weirdos”, transexuals, prostitutes and so on. Later, the word was reappropriated to refer to gender and sexual identities politics. As mentioned in the text Introduction to Fucking Solidarity: Queering Concepts on/from a Post-Soviet Perspective “the roots of the word Queer: our working-class background / our interest in feminist punk / our distrust in politics of respectability / our struggle with the old and new conservative movements that aim to shame and control bodies, sex and sexuality / our loneliness and togetherness in all of this.” (Katharina Wiedlack, 2021, 2).

[6] UNEP, 2016, in Stephany Pincetl “Inhabiting a post-urban twenty-first century”, 2017.

[7] De Lange et al, “Urban interfaces: between object, concept, and cultural practice” (2019)

[8] UCL Faculty of the built environment, Youtube, 2023. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYBgsg0A11c

[9] Sara Ahmed “Queer Phenomenology” (2006), 31.

[10] Ibid, 8.

[11] Ibid, 22.

[12] Jaffe “Queering Urban Studies – Introduction” (2006) in International Journal of Geographical and Regional Research.

[13] Ibid

[14] Lefebvre (2003) cited in Angelo and Wachsmuth (2015).

[15] Jaffe “Queering Urban Studies – Introduction” (2006).

[16] See appendix