Tactile places: doing sensory ethnography in Sydney’s drag king scene

Abstract

Going to drag king performances – a subcultural phenomenon where women consciously perform masculinity – has proved a popular pastime in Sydney, Australia. Established within a broader tradition of live performance culture, and part of wider urban night-time economies catering to lesbian patronage, these shows provided a highly visible spectacle that drew women to a series of events between 2002 and 2012. Sydney’s drag king scene offered women the potential for the shared pleasures of the performances, as well as the justification for mid-week nights out with friends, lovers and fellow fans. Exploring the connections between everyday forms of participation and the collective investments that establish these drag king events as intelligible social phenomenon inevitably leads to an engagement with space. By turning attention to the sensory economy circulating within scene participation, and the ethnographic research that followed it, this article explores how scene practices turn the sociality of the moment into an attachment to the venues that supported them. Contrary to the ephemerality that is thought to characterize minority cultures, I argue that forms of social engagement based on the tactility of their encounters inscribe spaces of the scene. In doing so, this article draws attention to the role the senses play – those sights, smells and sounds for participants and researchers alike – in the design and practice of cultural research.