Abstract
From the Arab Spring to the Umbrella Revolution, the last cycle of citizen protests has widely shared the strategy of occupying public spaces through the settlement of protest camps. Although one might imagine a homogeneous unity amongst the protesters, these encampments have been the scenario of multiple inner conflicts in relation with different vectors of oppression. This article discusses the conflicts faced and the coalition-building developed by queer activists in different encampments, with a focus on the relation between the occupation of queer spaces and the space of the protest as a whole. The Foucauldian concept of heterotopia is used here as a guide in order to understand the ambivalences and inner tensions of the space of the protest without losing, nor idealizing, the utopian impulse of these movements.
Highlights
Given their similarities, the label “Occupy movements” will be used here as an umbrella term for those movements that have shared the strategy of camping in public spaces at the heart of major cities, from the occupation of Tahrir Square in Egypt to the Umbrella Revolution in Hong Kong
This paper's main aim is to complement this body of literature by focusing on a topic which has received little academic attention: the challenges faced and the strategies deployed by queer activists in different encampments and their complex relation with the space of the protest as a whole
Minority character of queer activism, this essay faces some of the difficulties inherent to the process of accessing – and contributing to – the “queer archive”3 of the Occupy Movements, with the hope of making it easier for researchers from different academic fields to engage in further discussions of the topic
Summary
From the Arab Spring to the Umbrella Revolution, the last cycle of citizen protests has widely shared the strategy of occupying public spaces through the settlement of protest camps. One might imagine a homogeneous unity amongst the protesters, these encampments have been the scenario of multiple inner conflicts in relation with different vectors of oppression. This article discusses the conflicts faced and the coalition-building developed by queer activists in different encampments, with a focus on the relation between the occupation of queer spaces and the space of the protest as a whole. The Foucauldian concept of heterotopia is used here as a guide in order to understand the ambivalences and inner tensions of the space of the protest without losing, nor idealizing, the utopian impulse of these movements
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