'We're in Asia': Worlding LGBTQI+ activism otherwise in Sydney. (May 2021)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Ruez, Derek
• Other Names: Bain Alison L guest-editor.; Podmore Julie A guest-editor.
• Is Part Of: Urban studies. Volume 58:Number 7(2021)
• Page Start: 1414
• Page End: 1430
• Publication Date: 2021-05
• Subjects: LGBTQI+ activism -- place specificity -- queer politics -- queer urban studies -- spatial imaginaries -- worlding; LGBTQI+行动主义 -- 地方特异性 -- 酷儿政治 -- 酷儿城市研究 -- 空间想象 -- 世界化; Cities and towns -- Periodicals; City planning -- Periodicals; 307.1216
• DOI: 10.1177/0042098020966448
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0042-0980

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'.