Queer Mobilities: LGBT Citizenship on the Move
Panel: Call for Participants
Annual International Conference, London, 30 August-2 September 2016
Royal Geographical Society (RGS) with Institute of British Geographers (IBG)
Sponsored session by the Transport Geography Research Group (TGRG) and Space, Sexualities & Queer Research Group (SSQRG)
Conveners: Professor Karen Lucas (Institute for Transport Studies, University of Leeds) and Dr Martin Zebracki (School of Geography, University of Leeds)
This panel will explore the under-examined topic of mobility transitions of lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgender (LGBT) people as they experience and negotiate travel, migration and everyday living environments involving various modes of public and private transport from the local to the global and across physical, economic, sociocultural and virtual contexts.
Envisaging ‘queer’ as critical antipode of normative social practice, we especially welcome reflections on studies that introduce new, ‘queerying’ methodologies or ‘ways of looking’, and/or which seek to transform or transcend mobility environments in particular ways to become more sensitive to, inclusive of or critical towards citizenship identities, rights and responsibilities of LGBTs. This can be explored through reflexive practices or direct actions of the researcher and their participants at various geographical scales or communication of research messages to policymakers and practitioners.
Moreover, we would like to encourage contributors to ponder on the Nexus conference theme and to bring this to bear upon notions of place identity and ‘belonging in movement’ through and between explorations of (contra)normative experiences of LGBT performance in mobility.
Thus, we welcome critical accounts on LGBT citizenship ‘on the move’ as performed via mindset, behaviour, lifestyle, social interaction, etc. in multi-scalar transport contexts. Topics may include but are not limited to:
· Epistemologies of queer mobilities
· Sexual differentialities within queer mobilities (e.g. ‘trans’mobility)
· More-than-human queer mobilities: human queers, queer artefacts and (e)motion
· Queer mobilities and intersectionality (e.g. (dis)ability,
· Mobilities of queernormativity: (re)moving the queer norm
· Queer travellers/migrants and the (il)legal body (cf. queer liberalism)
· Mobilities of the securitisation of the queer body (cf. homonationalism)
· Artistic queer mobilities
· Policies of queer mobilities
· Intra-urban queer mobilities
· Digital vis-à-vis ‘offline’ queer mobilities / hybrid queer mobilities
If you are interested in participating in this panel, please provide a max. 300-word statement and max. 100-word bio (including affiliation and e-mail address) to both of us at K.Lucas AT leeds.ac.uk and M.M.Zebracki AT leeds.ac.uk by 12 February, 2016. Please contact us should you have any queries.