A sexuality pivot: Thinking through solidarity, geographies of sexuality, and a world in transition

Abstract

While work on solidarities forms a core element within geographical scholarship, especially as related to forms of shared connection to address forms of inequality, few studies from the geographies of sexualities literature have directly engaged with the concept. This article argues that there are two complementary logics as to why scholars working on sexuality may want to consider more forcibly the concept of solidarity. One of these logics suggests that a focus on solidarities can further pre-existing key interests within the geographies of sexualities literature, especially in parts of the world that have historically received relatively limited research attention. A second logic suggests that a focus on sexuality-based solidarities can help enable sexualities scholars to further critical engagement regarding broader discourses, and offer alternative framings, regarding a world in transition. This article presents a series of examples, drawn from across sub-Saharan Africa, related to both logics together with a series of potential future directions for research. Taken collectively, this article, by drawing on earlier work on solidarity from within the discipline of geography, contends that there are a number of key benefits for sexualities scholars to undertake a ‘pivot’ or choice to explore solidarity more directly in the current moment.

Imprisonment and Punishment in Fiji and the Links to Narrative Styles and Christian Culture

“…Was this omission a reflection, possibly subconscious, of the negative label that Western Fiji society had assigned to Dyer because of his ex-prisoner status? Since the business and football communities are essentially Fiji Indian-controlled, was the fact that Dyer was perceived to be a robber of Fiji Indian stores ultimately held against him as a mark of intragroup solidarity [20]? Racial or ethnic politics are an important and sometimes frustrating aspect of Fijian social life, with each community and sub-community (e.g., South Indian, North Indian, Gujarati, Sangam, and Arya Samaj among the Indians) holding on valiantly to its ethnic identification and associated cultural norms and histories.…”

Geographies of gender and sexuality I: Engaging the shift towards Southern urbanism

“…This work brought to the fore a number of concerns that would go on to shape and inform critical issues for geographers wishing to engage with the South – and which also find echoes in later Southern urbanism literature. One of these was an understanding that the global South cannot be reduced solely to a set of geographical coordinates and instead should also be seen as a relational concept that highlights both uneven and unequal geopolitical relations and, just as importantly, the collective peripheralisation of certain sites within global knowledge production (Lawhorn and Trulove, 2020; Manalansan IV, 2015; Nkula-Wenz and Cupers, 2022; Pieterse, 2015; Tucker, 2023). Another highlighted critical issue was an understanding that failing to read for complexity and agency among communities located in the South (tied, e.g.…”

“…Finally, another key feature of Southern urbanism has been an appreciation of the various forms of vulnerability faced by urban residents, including social, political, environmental, and economic risks. The significance of such widespread vulnerability therefore needs to be considered alongside the already widely documented instances of vulnerability faced by certain same-sex communities in parts of the urban South, where societal and/or legal discrimination may oftentimes be severe (Tucker, 2023). The existence of such widespread vulnerability is not only distinctly different to the vast majority of cities in the urban North, it also presents particular unique ways in which scholars can and are approaching the potential for how to comprehend urban politics as related to sexuality in the South.…”

“…Research is also suggesting that same-sex community groups and women’s groups in these contexts can closely align for particular forms of political action (Gevisser, 2016) which may also echo wider regional and transnational solidarity movements across sites in Latin America, Africa, and Asia (Bonner and Carré, 2013). As Tucker and Hassan (2020) and Tucker (2023) have argued, across the urban South there is a pressing need to think through how there may be in existence other broad-based urban political solidarity movements that include same-sex communities and how such movements may be involved in a wide array of activities potentially including, but also stretching beyond, formal protest against the state.…”

“…Another emerging concern for geographers working on sexuality, and especially on urban sexualities, has been a need to acknowledge and find ways of addressing the relative lack of studies on the urban South (Brown et al, 2010; Brown et al, 2016; Bain and Podmore, 2021; Tucker, 2023). On the one hand, such work can be seen to speak to broader concerns regarding the need to appreciate southern knowledge production and not to assume that theories or approaches that emerge from the global North will have the same applicability in the global South (Connell, 2014).…”