Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.15176/vol55no204
Queer Activism and the Transformation of the City: How the LGBTIQ Community is Fighting for Its Space in the City of Zagreb
Sanja Đurin
; Institut za etnologiju i folkloristiku, Zagreb
Abstract
According to architect Bernand Tschumi, architecture and the organization of space play a significant role in the creation and limitation of personal and political freedom. Tschumi refers to this power of architecture over citizens as ‘violence of architecture’. Space and events which happen in a particular space influence each other. Gill Valentine describes public spaces as the product of social forces. Just like place has an active role in the creation and reproduction of social identities, social identities, meanings and relations create material and symbolic spaces, notices Valentine. Further, Gill Valentine distinguishes three levels of space: material, regulatory and performative. In this paper I will try to demonstrate how these three levels of space correspond to the queer community in the city of Zagreb. First, I describe how queer groups organize in material spaces of the city and how the city authorities support their organization on the material space level. Then, I present how queer groups use regulatory space, i.e. public policies, to accomplish rights and freedoms that straight citizens already have and take for granted. And finally, I describe how queer activism is mobilizing the performative level of space in order to transform the city of Zagreb from a straight heterosexual space to a space of cultural differences, i.e. a space which includes non-hetero or queer sexual identities.
Keywords
space, regulation, performativity, LGBTIQ, Zagreb
Hrčak ID:
213375
URI
Publication date:
19.12.2018.
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