Local Cafe Sydney

Queer space is a highly specific mode of space, with its own complex meaning and significance. It is always already contested, not only because of the often marginal character of queer subcultures and activities, but because of the contestedness of queer identities themselves - balanced between a desire for rights, recognition, and acceptance on the one hand, and distinction, difference and alterity on the other. Queer space thus plays a key role in the construction and maintenance of community, society, and culture in a diverse slice of contemporary society. It is imperative that this role is understood.

'Queer' is both a reappropriation of an older (often homophobic) term formerly interchangeable with 'gay' or 'homosexual', and a proud claim to alterity. This is also the queer of 'queer theory', arising out of feminism, gay and lesbian studies, and film and literary theory. 'Queer Theory' as articulated within the North American academy through leading theorists such as Judith Butler and Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick proposes ‘queer’ as a more mobile and discursive, less essential notion than one which simply describes sexual preference. Sedgwick argues for ‘queer’ as a way of disrupting available thinking about sexuality rather than a search for category definitions. Likewise, as classics scholar and queer theorist David Halperin puts it, queer need not be grounded in any stable sexual identity but ‘queer’ acquires its meaning from oppositional relation to the norm. The domain of queer theory now extends from the disciplines that nurtured it, across a range of academic fields including urban geography, design studies, art history and theory, cultural studies and philosophy of science.

Within this context, this conference proposes to orient the discourse of queer studies towards the built environment and the culture of cities, opening and discussing a series of questions. These include: what is queer space and what role does it play in social, cultural, and political constructions of 'queerness' in the past, present, and future? How does the built urban environment support or discourage the formation of queer identities? Is there still a need for a distinct gay culture within an increasingly diverse and accepting wider society? Consequently what is the changing role of distinct gay environs within cities such as Sydney? How does gay culture's shift from being peripheral (hidden, clandestine, and exclusive) to being centralised (widely accepted, even 'mainstream') affect the way in which gay/queer culture is realised within the built environment? What are the routes, intentions, and economics of queer tourism, and how do they serve to identify some cities as ‘queer destinations’? What is the impact of specific ‘queer’ events on this process? How is the relationship between queer public and private space negotiated? How are queer identities figured in other urban artefacts, activities, and subcultures including clothing, music, dance, body adornment etc? How does queer culture imagine and invent its own versions of the city? How can queer history and memory, especially as associated with specific spaces and places, be understood, recorded, and represented? And what is the dialectic whereby the built urban environment is both constituted by and constitutes queer culture?

The conference will be significant in its critical approach to the contested political and ideological terrain around sexuality and space. It will be a contribution to cultural critique and to the theoretical literature of queer studies, urban sociology, urban geography, and architecture. The conference is timely in its recognition and analysis of the role that architecture and urbanism play in the formation and maintenance of subcultures, and in contemporary society more generally. It will explore various ways in which the built environment contributes to the ‘construction’ of culture and sub-cultures, and articulate how both architectural space and the city can represent ideas such as 'queerness'.

Drawing together scholars from a broad interdisciplinary field, the conference aims to encourage discussion of queer space conceived in its broadest sense, by scholars working in disciplines as diverse as architecture, history, art history, urban geography, planning, design, visual communication, cultural studies, and the social sciences.

The convenors wish to thank Sally Grey for assistance in writing this section.