Whose Lifestyle Matters at Johannesburg Pride? The Lifestylisation of LGBTQ+ Identities and the Gentrification of Activism

Abstract

In response to criticisms of whiteness and the privileging of middle-class South African experiences over the black majority and those in poverty, Johannesburg Pride expanded from a one-day event to include a ‘Lifestyle Conference’ in 2018. This article argues that rather than including broader South African LGBTQ+ experiences, rights and needs, the conference centred privileged and normative ‘lifestyles’ and emphasised individual agency, rather than making intersectional inequalities visible and a basis for collective action. Drawing from ethnographic research at Pride events, and interviews with Pride organisers and LGBTQ+ activists, this article builds on critiques and insights from social theory to analyse Johannesburg Pride’s Lifestyle Conference; its aims, politics, marketing and messages. By exploring the raced and classed exclusions of Johannesburg Pride, this article addresses key gaps in the academic literature on Pride, and traces how the lifestylisation of LGBTQ+ identities obscures inequality and contributes to the neoliberal co-option of Pride.

The politics of truth at LGBTQ+ Pride: contesting corporate Pride and revealing marginalized lives at Hong Kong Migrants Pride

“…While conducting my research, it was clear that there were significant social and ideological divides and different perceptions and narratives about Pride and LGBT life in Hong Kong between elite, corporate, and international LGBTQ+ advocates and local Cantonese activists. It was important, therefore, not to treat interview data as objective truths, but to analyze these co-created narratives in relation to the broader ethnographic data (Blee and Taylor 2002, 110-111;Conway 2022). Moving between these different spaces and communities in Hong Kong, I traversed not only racial, class, and linguistic divides, but also the contrasting worlds of international business and local queer activism.…”

“…Pride, in visual, spatial, and linguistic terms, creates understandings of lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, and queer (LGBTQ+) identities, frames political and social issues, and constructs representations of how LGBTQ+ lives are lived (Browne 2007;Bruce 2016;Conway 2022;Johnston 2005;Peterson, Wahlström, and Wennerhag 2018). Pride is an important site for defining the truths of LGBTQ+ lives: who we understand LGBTQ+ people to be, how LGBTQ+ identities are represented, and the issues and challenges that the LGBTQ+ community faces.…”

“…This moves beyond simply documenting shared symbols and practices, such as a rainbow or a parade, or analyzing the tactics used or repertoires of action, to reveal how underlying ideologies both frame and are reproduced by Pride. Multiple authors have detailed how LGBTQ+ advocacy has been co-opted in the reproduction of globalized capitalism (Burchiellaro 2020a;Conway 2022;Duggan 2004;Rao 2015Rao , 2020. However, Pride's co-option is not inevitable.…”

Do mobile device and mobile app innovations trigger lifestylisations? Insights from consumers in developing countries

“…In a similar fashion, Knudsen and Triantafillou (2021) used lifestylisation to examine how rationalities of lifestyle interventions concerned with prevention of certain choices and social risks appear as the obvious method to address diabetes and to optimise self-management. From a sociological standpoint, Conway (2021) delineates how the lifestylisation of LGBTQþ identities obscures inequality and contributes to the neoliberal co-option of Pride. From these studies, it presupposes that the concept of lifestylisation denotes the integration of any phenomenon, activity, technology or an ideology in normalising and/or altering human lifestyles.…”

Global Queer and Feminist Activism: An Introduction

“…For critiques of the de-politicization and lifestylisation of Pride events, see for exampleConway, 2022. …”