Geographies of Sexualities in Brazil: Between National Invisibility and Subordinate Inclusion in Postcolonial Networks of Knowledge Production

Abstract

This article reviews and examines the production of literature on sexualities in Brazilian geography, through mapping and analysing the key authors, main topics and conceptual networks. The analysis considered all the articles published on sexualities (34 articles) in Brazilian geography from 1995 to 2012, combining a review of critical concepts and a methodology of social network analysis. The study shows there was an expansion in research on sexualities in Brazil, especially in the 2000s, with a particular emphasis on concepts of territoriality and the experience of travesti. This expansion coincided with the internationalisation of scientific production in Brazil and the achievements of the Brazilian LGBT rights movement. However, despite this increase, the article explores how scientific literature on sexualities in Brazilian geography appears to be concentrated in ghettos within Brazil and, on the international scale, how it is connected in a subordinate manner to networks that are formed by the coloniality of knowledge.

Migration as an active strategy to escape the ‘second closet’ for HIV-positive gay men in Barcelona and Rome

“…In line with other recent attempts to decentre the focus of this sub-field (e.g. Kulpa and Silva, 2016;Rodó-de-Zárate, 2016;Silva and Vieira, 2014;Silva, Ornat and Chimin Junior, 2013), the paper focuses on two cities, Barcelona and Rome, located at the Southern periphery of Europe and is authored by a non-native English speaker who was working there at the time of the research. Beyond contributing to the sub-field of geographies of sexualities by focusing on two cities that remain underexplored, the research aims to stimulate academic production around space, gender and sexualities in Italy and Spain by re-asserting the importance of cities for specific social groups who have been largely ignored by 'local' geographical researchers (Borghi, 2012) 2 .…”

Setting a research agenda on sexuality and migration in demographic studies: what emerges from the literature review

“…Most of the studies showcased here stem from the social sciences, but in the field of geography, which was marked in the country by the work of Silva (2008), publications have emerged related to sexual minorities, territoriality and space (SOUZA; ORNAT, 2020;ORNAT, 2008;ORNAT, 2015). In their review of articles published on sexuality in the field of geography in Brazil, Silva and Vieira (2014) set the scenery of literature published between 1995 and 2012 and the problems faced by Brazilian scholars in a field dominated by Anglophone literature. Initially, the authors thought that the existence of established international journals of geography of sexualities would facilitate the insertion of their discussions in the field.…”

Luso-Brazilian geographies? The making of epistemic communities in semi-peripheral academic human geography

“…Urban geographers have worked together on urban regeneration projects in historical city centres and urban landscapes of retail and consumption in Brazil and Portugal (Fernandes and Sposito, 2013). Social and cultural geographers have collaborated in studies on the international and urban mobility of migrants (Buhr and McGarrigle, 2017; Iorio and Fonseca, 2018), and the geographies of sexuality in postcolonial settings (Silva and Vieira, 2010, 2014). Health geographers have worked together in studies on the spatial variation of infant mortality (Miranda et al, 2014; Faria and Santana, 2016).…”