Making Dupont Gay Again: Reactivating Place and Queer Community in Iconic Gay Neighborhoods

• In Event: 4261 - Queer Spaces/Queer Places

Abstract

Drawing on a combination of qualitative methods using data collected primarily from gay neighborhoods in Washington, DC, this paper develops the theory of place reactivation – the process of reclaiming and reviving the dormant character of a place or locality. As neighborhoods gentrify and place entrepreneurs selectively adopt and appropriate elements of local culture, the sedimented histories and cultures that once defined a neighborhood or locality do not necessarily disappear. Rather, like abeyance structures in social movements (Taylor 1989), those representations lie dormant in institutional anchors (place abeyance structures), available for indigenous communities to mobilize these representations to protect their interests in local community through a variety of informal and formal place-making practices. Place reactivation gestures to how neighborhoods comprise a plurality of cultural, political, and affective communities composed of local residents and vicarious citizens (Greene 2014), who at times have differing and conflicting perspectives on the functions of neighborhoods. Place reactivation also aids in our understanding of how gay neighborhoods retain their relevance in the “post-gay” era. While LGBT citizens no longer feel the need to live in discrete gay neighborhoods, place reactivation draws attention to a variety of community actors whose place-making practices signify new strategies for preserving gay neighborhoods. Reviving symbolically significant community spaces and mobilizing queer communities as they need them, LGBT denizens still rely on gay neighborhoods as symbolically important spaces where gender and sexual identities are affirmed and supported.

Author

• Theo Greene, Bowdoin College