Jon Binnie,
"Envisioning Economic and Sexual Justice Spatially"
(page 3 of 3)
The Urban in Economic and Sexual Justice
While there has been a decline of interest in the national scale of
governance in political economy, there has been a growth of interest in
cities, how they are connected by (transnational) flows of people,
capital and knowledge, and the competition for inward investment,
entrepreneurs, income from tourism, etc.
Richard Florida's book The Rise of the Creative Class has been
highly influential in urban policy-setting agendas associated with city
development and regeneration strategies. Florida argues that
economically successful and entrepreneurial cities in the U.S. are those
that contain high concentrations of bohemians, gays and immigrants. He
calculates a "gay index" based on census data of same-sex couples and
suggests that cities shown to be open to gays are also open to
innovation and supportive of entrepreneurialism.
Rather problematically, he argues that: "to some extent,
homosexuality represents the last frontier of diversity in our society,
and thus a place that welcomes the gay community welcomes all kinds of
people" (2002: 256). In Florida's argument, homosexuality becomes
equated with entrepreneurialism and affluence, but renders invisible
economically-disadvantaged queers. There are also problems with the way
he discusses the notion of creativity and middle class, which ignores
vernacular, working class forms of creativity. He goes on to state that:
"The Gay Index was positively associated with the Creative Class . . .
but it was negatively associated with the Working Class" (ibid: 258).
Arguing that cities containing large numbers of gays, geeks and
foreign-born residents tend to be more entrepreneurial, Florida draws
attention to the competition between cities to attract professionals,
entrepreneurs, inward investment, and tourism. This argument reproduces
a neoliberal discourse where urban governance is primarily concerned
with promoting cities as business-friendly spaces of innovation and
entrepreneurialism, as opposed to addressing and tackling social
inequalities within their citizenry.
Strategies to promote international lesbian and gay tourism have
generated controversy and produced distinctions between legitimate and
illegitimate sexual subjectivities. In a study based on Manchester, UK,
Howard Hughes (2002) argues that the branding and marketing of the
city's gay village nationally and internationally is having potentially
deleterious consequences leading to a loss of ownership and a
"de-gaying" of the space. He also notes criticism of marketing campaigns
for "promoting sex" and giving a poor impression of the city. Discourses
around gay entrepreneurialism and the marketing of gay tourist
destinations position affluent, entrepreneurial, professional gays of
the creative and tourist economy as distinct from the "queer
unwanted"—individuals whose lifestyles are less respectable and do not
fit the narratives of urban regeneration strategies.
Stephen Tomsen's (2006) research on homophobia in New South Wales in
Australia also illustrates the importance of spatial ordering in
distinguishing between notions of gay and lesbian respectability.
Drawing attention to the law's distinction between "innocent" and
"guilty" victims of homophobic attacks, Tomsen argues that the formation
of respectable, gentrified gay and lesbian spaces has helped to
reinforce distinctions between proper and improper homosexualities. One
of the negative consequences arising from the de-sexing of lesbian and
gay cultural identities associated with the development of these spaces
has been that people engaging in public sex become further marginalised
as improper, the "guilty" victims of homophobic attacks.
Concluding Comments
Tomsen's essay should remind us that we need to recognise the
significance of the erotic and the spatial in the way distinctions are
made between those whose bodies are seen to matter, and those who are
seen as without value. Moreover, an awareness of the scaling of economic
and sexual practices can help us recognise the limitations of notions of
economic and sexual justice that are rooted in specific spatial
contexts. In attempting to articulate a vision of sexual and economic
justice, we need to recognise both the significance of space, and the
necessity to strive for holistic ways of conceptualising socialspatial
relations.
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