Embodying transnational queer Black and Brown utopia in alternative QTPOC nightlife spaces

abstract

This focus explores queer Black and Brown feminist and utopian politics as imagined in modern-day alternative nightlife spaces. This is done through case studies of the QTPOC (Queer and Trans People of Colour) nightlife spaces of Queertopia by the Other Village People in Johannesburg, Misery Party and Pxssy Palace in London, and Papi Juice and BK Boihood in New York. These cities are particularly lifted up as spaces of Black and Brown resistance to white dominance and racial capital, even within LGBTQIA+ spaces that implicitly or explicitly do not cater to Black and Brown queers. Through these examinations, it is argued that queer feminists of colour are embodying queer utopia through parties that centre healing, mental health, ancestral faith practices, queer Black and Brown music and dance traditions, and spaces for activists and cultural workers to gather beyond mainstream bars and nightlife. By linking these practices to transnational resistance to racial capitalism and cisheterophobia, and by particularly catering to queer people of colour involved in social movement, resistance, and cultural organising work, these parties exist as experiments in Black and Brown transnational feminist practice. This article examines the bonds that organisers and attendees of these parties build with each other across borders, both in physical nightlife spaces as well as in digital spaces conducted during COVID-19 lockdowns that explicitly brought queer people of colour together to dance and dream transnationally. It ultimately argues that these nightlife spaces are practices of imagining the possibility of utopias where queer people of colour thrive beyond borders.

keywords:

• queer utopia
• queer nightlife
• queer and trans people of colour
• cultural organising

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Maya Bhardwaj

MAYA BHARDWAJ (she/they) is a queer South-Indian-American scholar, organiser, activist, and artist. She holds over 10 years of experience working as a community organiser across queer of colour communities in South Africa, the USA, UK, Mexico, India, and more. They are currently a second-year PhD candidate in the Department of Sociology at the University of Pretoria, South Africa. Email: [email protected] or [email protected].