ABSTRACT
The politics of queer activism underpins the research questions of sexuality scholars in many disciplines, including geography. The protest movements of 1960s and 1970s in Western countries inspired many activists to be scholars with the idea that academic work is a form of activism that challenges inequalities, insecurities, and processes of marginalization. We are concerned with, and inspired by, the politics of queer activism with a geographical dimension. A small (but growing) number of geographers are explicit about their involvement in queer activism, from pride projects pitched locally, to gay pride parade festivals that now have an international reputation and audience. A focus on the spatiality of gay pride parades and festivals highlights the ways in which the politics of events are always simultaneously personal and structural, by drawing on relational ontologies that conceive of bodies and spaces as mutually constitutive.
