Belonging in gay neighborhoods and queer nightlife

Abstract

Research on belonging is often based in the context of globalization, nationalism, and citizenship, or else on the experiences of racial and ethnic minorities, immigrants, refugees, asylum seekers, and colonial subjects. The history, struggles, and perspectives of LGBTQ+ people are absent from this narrative. In this essay, I use urban gay districts in the United States and underground queer club nights in the United Kingdom to show how our drive to form meaningful social attachments occurs as we interact with people in particular places. Evidence from the first case, gay neighborhoods, shows why belonging still matters in these iconic places, despite declarations of their decline. Queer nightlife draws attention to the specter of not belonging, or un-belonging. I use this second case to examine the effects of exclusion as queer, trans, Black, Indigenous, and people of color respond to racism with creativity and cultural entrepreneurship. I leverage both cases, neighborhoods and nightlife, to propose a programmatic vision for the emplacement of belonging: Our sense of belonging is intimately connected to place.