Résumé de l'intervention:
The manipulation of gay rights has made it possible to actively support blatantly racist, classist, sexist and xenophobic policies. Let's abandon sexuality as a personal identity that just defines a lifestyle. We are angry, we are pissed off, dissatisfied, indignados'. Queeristan Festival, Amsterdam, 2013. Queer festivals constitute a dynamic repertoire of action of queer politics in Europe, expanding across the continent. Based upon their belief in the limits of strict identity politics of gender and sexuality, queer festivals attempt to construct new identities, based upon their anti-identitarian ethos. Beyond their discursive frames, queer festivals, as prefigurative spaces, attempt to build their new identities through specific practices, reflected among others on their organizational choices. The paper discusses the organizational and discursive practices of queer festivals by attempting to challenge the 'queer paradox' in social movement studies that sees the 'constant deconstruction of identities... as undermin[ing] the claims to strength and unity of their own rights movement' (Jasper et al., forthcoming). The paper will suggest that queer festivals move their discourse beyond a right-oriented frame, attempting to prefigure the world they would like to live in, by implementing concrete activist practices. By doing that, they build themselves as counterpublics: groups excluded from the official public sphere, formulating however oppositional interpretations in their identities (Fraser, 1990; Warner, 2002). Insight into the paper is based on ethnographic research conducted in five European capitals, including semi-structured interviews.
Discutant: Thierry Delessert
Le Vernissage du livre "Droit LGBT" aura lieu à l'issue de la conférence. Michel Montini présentera l'ouvrage au cours d'un apéritif offert par la Plateforme interfacultaire en Etudes Genre - PlaGe.