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Thinking beyond Homonormativity: Performative Explorations of Diverse Gay Economies

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  • Gavin Brown

    (Department of Geography, University of Leicester, F57, Bennett Building, University Road, Leicester LE1 7HR, England)

Abstract

This paper performatively decentres the role of mainstream gay consumption in contemporary thought about the economic and social lives of lesbians and gay men in the Global North. It is simultaneously critical and reparative in outlook. This paper critically engages with recent writing on homonormativity, suggesting that this work presents ‘homonormativity’ as an all-encompassing structure that becomes politically unassailable. In parallel with an analysis of contemporary lesbian and gay life as being complicit in the reproduction of various normativities, this paper takes the innovative and reparative stance of considering how such spaces and practices also produce interdependent relationships across social difference. Drawing on the recent work of Gibson-Graham (2006, A Postcapitalist Politics University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, MN) this paper considers the prospects for outlining the diversity of lesbian and gay economic practices, with the performative ambition of making existing noncapitalist practices more visible and viable. To this end, the paper examines a number of gay spaces and practices to consider the different forms of enterprise, transactions, and labour that take place within them. On the basis of its preliminary inventory of diverse gay economic practices and spaces, this paper proposes that there are many aspects of contemporary urban gay life that already offer alternatives to the homonormative practices of neoliberalism.

Suggested Citation

  • Gavin Brown, 2009. "Thinking beyond Homonormativity: Performative Explorations of Diverse Gay Economies," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 41(6), pages 1496-1510, June.
  • Handle: RePEc:sae:envira:v:41:y:2009:i:6:p:1496-1510
    DOI: 10.1068/a4162
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Gavin Brown, 2007. "Mutinous Eruptions: Autonomous Spaces of Radical Queer Activism," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 39(11), pages 2685-2698, November.
    2. Badgett, M.V. Lee, 2001. "Money, Myths, and Change," University of Chicago Press Economics Books, University of Chicago Press, edition 1, number 9780226034003, October.
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    Cited by:

    1. David K. Seitz, 2015. "The Trouble With Flag Wars: Rethinking Sexuality in Critical Urban Theory," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 39(2), pages 251-264, March.

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