Travel guides, urban spatial imaginaries and LGBTQ+ activism: The case of Damron guides. (May 2021)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Knopp, Larry; Brown, Michael
• Other Names: Bain Alison L guest-editor.; Podmore Julie A guest-editor.
• Is Part Of: Urban studies. Volume 58:Number 7(2021)
• Page Start: 1380
• Page End: 1396
• Publication Date: 2021-05
• Subjects: community -- diversity/cohesion/segregation -- gender -- politics -- queer -- sexuality -- social; 社区 -- 多样性/凝聚力/隔离 -- 性别 -- 政治 -- 同性恋 -- 性 -- 社会; Cities and towns -- Periodicals; City planning -- Periodicals; 307.1216
• DOI: 10.1177/0042098020913457
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0042-0980

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.