LGBTQ situated memory, place-making and the sexual politics of gentrification

Abstract

<jats:p> This article draws on material from an ethnographic study in the gentrifying/gentrified London neighbourhood of Brixton to analyse the relationship between practices of LGBTQ territorialisation and the politics of neighbourhood change. It proceeds with two interrelated aims: to think critically about the ways in which LGBTQ claims to place-based belonging interact with racialised and classed ideologies of displacement and disciplining, and to explore memory’s significance in framing the relationship between LGBTQ people and place. ‘LGBTQ situated memory’ is thus introduced here as a concept that draws attention to the complex, contradictory and dynamic role that site-specific evocations of the past play in contemporary LGBTQ urban politics. By exploring three memory tropes that emerge in Brixton, I show that LGBTQ situated memory can be used to claim spatialised belonging, negotiate culpability for gentrification and disturb progress narratives. Ultimately this article both calls for, and works towards, an approach to sexual geography that foregrounds multiplicity: a multiplicity of LGBTQ situated histories and – as is reflected in the memories explored – a multiplicity of relationships between LGBTQ people and neighbourhood development. </jats:p>

Border Regimes: Homophobia and LGBT Place Making in Six Ordinary Cities in Europe

“…Progress then can be understood as an enabler of gentrification that translates into place making for the white middle-class in form of gentrification. In other words, feelings of safety may be related with gentrification that tends to go hand in hand with a displacement of the migrant and working-class population in these neighbourhoods (Spruce 2020).…”

“…These communities might then become stigmatised through association with 'out of date' attitudes towards sexuality (El-Tayeb 2012; Binnie and Skeggs 2004). It could be argued that by celebrating 'queer friendly neighbourhoods', class and racialised hierarchies can become arguably naturalised (Spruce 2020). This further legitimises 'othering' or the production of social division and social exclusion by stigmatising the working-class and migrants of all sexualities (Stanko 2001).…”

Connecting place branding to social and governance constructs in Johannesburg, South Africa

“…The patriarchal nature of place branding, as has until recently been practised, undermines the gender equalisation enterprise as espoused by many of the world's democratic and progressive nations (Cassinger 2019). In addition, the colonial connotation of the second attribute reinforces the challenges that women and those who do not ascribe to traditional binary configuration of male and female, including those who identify as non-binary, genderqueer or may refrain from using gender as a basis for their self-identification women and other individuals who choose not to identify as males or those that do not use gender to self-identity have struggled with as far as the right to the city movement is concerned (Spruce 2020).…”

Place-making as an attentive urban presence

“…Migrants' involvement in spatial interventions (e.g., cultivating community gardens) and its impact on settling in and gradually becoming empowered in a new place is being researched (Biglin, 2020). The effect of the ability to inscribe one's will in space to strengthen identities at risk of marginalisation is also analysed toward categories like sexual minorities (Spruce, 2020) or women studying abroad (Anderson, 2012). The relationship between involvement in small spatial interventions made in the immediate neighbourhood and the 'possible self' and ambition of life goals set by children and adolescents is also being explored (Prince, 2014).…”