Geographies of Desire: (Re)mapping Black Queer and Trans Life in Salvador da Bahia

• In Event: The construction of Biopolitics: Space and Representation in Mexico, Chile and Brazil

Abstract

This paper contextualizes urban development through the experiences of Black queer and trans Brazilians living in Salvador da Bahia across space and time. Despite being relegated to the margins of society by local government and its beneficiaries, Black queer and trans Brazilians have carved out space for themselves in the past, present, and future of the city. Using historiography, participatory mapping, and media analysis, I show how Black queer and trans Brazilians contest and (re)construct Salvador to reflect their own understandings of space-time, leading to more robust ways of knowing how non-normative bodies move throughout the city. I synthesize these lines of inquiry by exploring how desire (sexual, platonic, romantic, etc.) maps onto space in ways that determine who is and isn’t deserving of access, protection and, in the most extreme of circumstances, life. This sort of spatial analysis, which I refer to as geographies of desire, is crucial in that it allows for nuanced readings of how Black queer and trans Brazilians navigate a city that simultaneously profits on their existence while cosigning their extermination via queerphobic/transphobic violence.

Author

• Joshua K Reason