‘We’re in Asia’: Worlding LGBTQI+ activism otherwise in Sydney

Abstract

Building on recent work in postcolonial urban studies that has developed more genuinely plural approaches to urban theorising, this article poses the problem of ‘worlding’ in relation to urban LGBTQI+ activism in Sydney, Australia. Specifically, the article examines how Sydney is variously worlded as or against ‘Asia’ in public debate around LGBTQI+ politics and in the imaginaries of activists living in Sydney. These worldings are shown to be an important aspect of queer activisms and urbanisms in Sydney, and I argue that attention to this worlding can productively complement a renewed focus on place and specificity in queer urban literatures. While imagining Sydney or Australia as part of Asia is itself no guarantee of productive politics or of decentring epistemologies, the article argues that some of these worldings do provide an occasion and a provocation to think elsewhere and otherwise in ways that are responsive to the specific character of White Australia’s colonial pasts and presents, while also generatively (dis)locating Sydney beyond the ‘West’.

Placing LGBTQ+ urban activisms

“…Just as settler colonialism shapes racism in Toronto's gay village, so too does it inform LGBTQI+ activisms in Sydney, Australia. In '''We're in Asia''', Ruez (2021) argues that worlding is integral to understanding the specificity of Sydney's LGBTQI+ activisms because it disrupts its colonial positioning, enabling queer activists to leverage multi-scalar regional networks. Ruez reads worlding through the political subjectivities, spatial imaginaries and everyday experiences of racialised queer migrants.…”

The place of transversal LGBTQ+ urban activisms

“…In particular, Currans argues that the attachment to place in small cities, amplified through forms of activism that emphasise local political histories, can provide the basis for 'affinity activisms'. Complementing this diversification of research sites, several articles examine the geographical imaginaries of LGBTQ+ activisms (Knopp and Brown, 2021;Ruez, 2021). These importantly draw attention to connections across space, emphasising networks of LGBTQ+ urban activisms and countering the analytic tendency to explore urban sites as discrete units.…”