Insular queers: age and geographical isolation as significant categories to consider while reflecting on LGBTQ people’s visibility
28–29 September 2023 | University of Zagreb, Croatia
Joana Brilhante presented Insular queers: age and geographical isolation as significant categories to consider while reflecting on LGBTQ people’s visibility at the Midterm Conference of the European Sociological Association Sexuality Research Network, held at the University of Zagreb on 28–29 September 2023.
Abstract
Factors such as space and age have been considered in fields such as geographies of sexualities and age/ageing studies, respectively, as important factors in analysing queer people’s experiences. This qualitative, multimethod research uses a case study – the archipelago of the Azores, Portugal – to reflect on the intersections between geographical isolation, age and queer people’s public visibility. The results highlight a metronormative and dichotomous idea of “living outside the islands” and “freedom for LGBTQ people”. Although being ubiquitous amongst the 25 semistructured interviews conducted, this perception is only present when people are speaking about other people. When reflecting about their own experiences, this metronormativity seems to fade away, especially as participants grow older. Overall, this study illuminates the importance to complement LGBTQ scholarship, which has been predominantly focused on large and metropolitan spaces, by exploring the richness of experiences among peripheral queer individuals. Insular contexts offer a unique, partially closed environment that provide fertile ground for informing theory and practice advancing towards the respect for queer people’s human rights.
The presentation was part of the conference panel Making room makes all the difference – intersections of sexual, gender and age diversity in the context of Southern Europe.
