‘Fornicating on floats’? The cultural politics of the Sydney Mardi Gras Parade beyond the metropolis

Abstract

Studies of the Sydney Mardi Gras Parade conventionally explore how sexualised subjectivities are debated, enacted, performed and transgressed within the festival time/space. Instead, this paper seeks to understand the cultural politics of emotion generated by this parade in the lives of individuals some 3000 kilometres away in Townsville, Queensland. Drawing on a performative framework, we rely upon the concepts of ‘progressive sense of place’, ‘situated subjectivities’ and ‘emotional Borderlands’. Narrative analysis reveals sexual subjectivities are actively produced and contested through the different ways bodies, emotions, sexuality and spatiality become entwined within the annual rhythms of this mega‐event. The Sydney Mardi Gras Parade beyond Oxford Street signals both a threat to certain situated gay male subjectivities and a productive test to everyday assumptions that naturalise space as heterosexual across a number of geographical scales.

Keywords:

• geography
• tourism
• gender
• events
• politics

Acknowledgements

Thanks to all those who gave up their time to participate in the Home and Away Project. We are indebted to the insights on earlier drafts from participants at Hamilton Pride 2009, New Zealand, October 2009; Carol Farbotko, Karen Crowe and the generosity of three anonymous referees.