In search of a ‘gay atmosphere’: Emplacing sexual boundary-work

• In Event: 4261 - Queer Spaces/Queer Places

Abstract

Recent scholarship has identified substantial demographic and institutional changes within gay neighborhoods and begun to explore the contemporary tensions in these neighborhoods as they begin to change. These tensions often take the form of contest over space and spatial and cultural practice, which is used by collective social actors as a form of boundary-work to implicitly negotiate collective identity and defend rights claims to space. Drawing on a comparative ethnography of 4 drag performance spaces in Chicago’s Boystown and Andersonville gay neighborhoods, I extend this scholarship by demonstrating how such boundary processes are necessarily emplaced. I draw on Gieryn’s (2000) tripartite conceptualization of place to show that both local ecologies of space and meaning and the built environment have significant effects on boundary-work in gay bars. I argue that incorporating a more precise model of space and place helps us to better understand how social processes unfold.

Author

• Nisarg Mehta, University of Chicago