Pinkwashing Policies or Insider Activism? Allyship in the LGBTIQ+ Governance–Activism Nexus

Karine Duplan
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Karine Duplan: Department of Geography and Environment, University of Geneva, Switzerland

Urban Planning, 2023, vol. 8, issue 2, 187-196

Abstract: While there has been an increase in the rights and visibility of LGBTIQ+ people in (most) European countries, critiques of what is denounced as instrumentalization by public policies of LGBTIQ+ issues have also developed. In this context, one can ask how to qualify the strengthened relationships between governance and activism. In this article, I propose to explore the paradoxical articulation of the multiple sites from where the cause support can be enacted. Drawing on a Geneva-based ethnographic research project, I use the concept of governance–activism nexus to reflect on the liminal position of public officials in charge of implementing equality agendas. Troubling further the insider–outsider binary divide, I argue that they act towards a discrete queering of municipal governance from the inside, through the practice of allyship in solidarity. In so doing, this article offers future research perspectives for the study of urban/regional LGBTIQ+ activism and politics, while allowing us to question our own position as critical or activist researchers in the field of feminist and queer geographies.

Keywords: allyship; equality; Geneva; insider activism; pinkwashing; public policies; queer space (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cog:urbpla:v8:y:2023:i:2:p:187-196

DOI: 10.17645/up.v8i2.6509

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