The Queer Politics of Pride

Through captivating ethnographic accounts and detailed analysis, Conway shows us how Pride has become a conduit for the gentrification of queer life, while also demonstrating how rebellious queer activists around the world creatively refuse this incorporation. This should be the definitive book on the global politics of Pride * Chris Rossdale, University of Bristol, UK *In this sharp, funny, and fiercely honest book, Conway slices through the feel-good narratives surrounding Pride and pushes us to confront the tough, necessary questions: Who gets excluded? How does capitalism shape the politics of these events? And where might Pride go from here? Seamlessly weaving theory with rich ethnographic work, Conway offers not a negative critique but a reparative and generous reading — opening up fresh, alternative ways of imagining queer politics today. This is a book that doesn’t just analyse Pride; it loves queer worlds enough to demand better, and it turns to grassroots activists and community organizers — centring their voices, their struggles, and their visions — to show us the way forward. * Olimpia Burchiellaro, University of Essex, UK *A searing critique of Pride Ltd: the corporate takeover, depoliticisation and triumph of party over protest - plus the story of grassroots queer resistance to reclaim Pride for the community and LGBTI+ liberation. * Peter Tatchell, LGBT+ Human Rights Defender *

In this new and timely study, Daniel Conway illustrates the continued important of PRIDE events, drawing on a global set of case studies and centring the possibilities of queer theory and activism as a critique of commercialized Pride in an era when corporate homocapitalism is abandoning its support of LGBTQI events and identities. Drawing on rich qualitative research from South Africa, India, Taiwan, the USA and Cuba, Conway leads us through the complexities of organizing and resisting ‘gentrified’ Pride events, demonstrating that while the critiques of commercialized, elite-led Pride events are ever more relevant, this singularly symbolic event is always being contested by a more radical understanding of the need to return visibility to its political purpose.Conway presents a detailed and original contribution on the commonalities and differences in a truly international comparison of Pride. Moreover, he also contributes significantly to theorizing and evidencing the difficulties of retaining the original disruptive, radical edge of ‘queer’ thinking and activism in the contexts of mature and maturing LGBTQI+ social movements, the emergence and retreat of homocapitalism, and the deployment of Pride in homocolonialist fashion by corporations and western governments. This is an indispensable study, bringing clarity in a complex and contentious moment.

Daniel Conway is Reader in Politics and International Relations at the University of Westminster, UK and a Research Associate at the Wits Centre for Diversity Studies, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. He has published extensively on LGBTQ+ activism and South African politics and society. He is the author of Migration, Space and Transnational Identities: The British in South Africa (with Pauline Leonard, 2014) and Masculinities, Militarisation and the End Conscription Campaign: War Resistance in Apartheid South Africa (2012). Conway is a previous chair of the Feminist Theory and Gender Section of the International Studies Association.