IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/urbstu/v58y2021i7p1380-1396.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Travel guides, urban spatial imaginaries and LGBTQ+ activism: The case of Damron guides

Author

Listed:
  • Larry Knopp

    (University of Washington Tacoma, USA)

  • Michael Brown

    (University of Washington, USA)

Abstract

In this paper we focus on LGBTQ+ travel guides and the creation of a North American LGBTQ+ urban imaginary as forms and facilitators of activism. Specifically, we consider one of the few continuously published sources detailing such an imaginary in the mid-20th century and its construction of an ‘epistemological grid’ onto which entries were placed. We briefly situate the guides in the context of an emerging (and frequently politicised) mid-20th-century LGBTQ+ media ecosystem, then proceed to a detailed analysis of the imaginary they evoke. Cities are the guides’ assumed building-blocks, along with certain other ontologies, most notably bars, sex establishments and other meeting places (though these change over time). As aggregators of information at a national scale, the guides standardised and communicated particular notions of what LGBTQ+ space was (and is). At the same time, as way-finding tools they helped readers navigate actual communities at the local scale. In so doing, we argue, Damron guides helped shape early forms of LGBTQ+ identity and community in North America – including the establishment of ‘gaybourhoods’. We therefore interpret the guides as both activist and facilitators of activism. They claimed space at an abstract level while simultaneously facilitating place-making, territorialisation and simple survival strategies by actual people on the ground. Our analysis contributes to understandings of the relationship, over time and at multiple scales, between travel guides, an urban-based North American spatial imaginary and LGBTQ+ activism. It also highlights Damron guides’ potential as a rich source of data.

Suggested Citation

  • Larry Knopp & Michael Brown, 2021. "Travel guides, urban spatial imaginaries and LGBTQ+ activism: The case of Damron guides," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 58(7), pages 1380-1396, May.
  • Handle: RePEc:sae:urbstu:v:58:y:2021:i:7:p:1380-1396
    DOI: 10.1177/0042098020913457
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0042098020913457
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0042098020913457?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. D P Dixon & J P Jones III, 1998. "My Dinner with Derrida, or Spatial Analysis and Poststructuralism Do Lunch," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 30(2), pages 247-260, February.
    2. Gavin Brown, 2007. "Mutinous Eruptions: Autonomous Spaces of Radical Queer Activism," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 39(11), pages 2685-2698, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Alison L Bain & Julie A Podmore, 2021. "Placing LGBTQ+ urban activisms," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 58(7), pages 1305-1326, May.
    2. Emma Spruce, 2021. "The place of transversal LGBTQ+ urban activisms," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 58(7), pages 1520-1528, May.
    3. Stathis G. Yeros & Leonardo Chiesi, 2022. "Trans Territorialization: Building Empowerment beyond Identity Politics," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 11(10), pages 1-20, September.
    4. Amin Ghaziani, 2021. "People, protest and place: Advancing research on the emplacement of LGBTQ+ urban activisms," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 58(7), pages 1529-1540, May.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Roberts, Susan M. & Jones III, John Paul & Frohling, Oliver, 2005. "NGOs and the globalization of managerialism: A research framework," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 33(11), pages 1845-1864, November.
    2. Gavin Brown, 2009. "Thinking beyond Homonormativity: Performative Explorations of Diverse Gay Economies," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 41(6), pages 1496-1510, June.
    3. Elizabeth Currans, 2021. "‘Creating the community I want to be part of’: Affinity-based organising in a small, progressive rustbelt city," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 58(7), pages 1484-1499, May.
    4. John Horton & Peter Kraftl, 2009. "What (Else) Matters? Policy Contexts, Emotional Geographies," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 41(12), pages 2984-3002, December.
    5. Jairus Rossi, 2013. "The Socionatural Engineering of Reductionist Metaphors: A Political Ecology of Synthetic Biology," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 45(5), pages 1127-1143, May.
    6. Gilly Hartal & Chen Misgav, 2021. "Queer urban trauma and its spatial politics: A lesson from social movements in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 58(7), pages 1463-1483, May.
    7. Xin Pan & Maarten Loopmans, 2021. "Intersectional Heterotopia: HIV and LGBTQ+ Movement in China," Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie, Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG, vol. 112(2), pages 121-134, April.
    8. John Nagle, 2022. "‘Where the state freaks out’: Gentrification, Queerspaces and activism in postwar Beirut," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 59(5), pages 956-973, April.
    9. Michael Brown & Travis Colton, 2001. "Dying Epistemologies: An Analysis of Home Death and its Critique," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 33(5), pages 799-821, May.
    10. Mitch Rose, 2004. "Reembracing Metaphysics," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 36(3), pages 461-468, March.
    11. Lynda Johnston & Gordon Waitt, 2021. "Play, protest and pride: Un/happy queers of Proud to Play in Auckland, Aotearoa New Zealand," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 58(7), pages 1431-1447, May.
    12. Marianna Pavlovskaya, 2006. "Theorizing with GIS: A Tool for Critical Geographies?," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 38(11), pages 2003-2020, November.
    13. Alison L Bain & Julie A Podmore, 2021. "Placing LGBTQ+ urban activisms," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 58(7), pages 1305-1326, May.
    14. Rae Daniel Rosenberg, 2021. "Negotiating racialised (un)belonging: Black LGBTQ resistance in Toronto’s gay village," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 58(7), pages 1397-1413, May.
    15. Alison L Bain & Julie A Podmore, 2021. "Relocating queer: Comparing suburban LGBTQ2S activisms on Vancouver’s periphery," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 58(7), pages 1500-1519, May.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:urbstu:v:58:y:2021:i:7:p:1380-1396. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.gla.ac.uk/departments/urbanstudiesjournal .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.