The 6th European Geographies of Sexualities Conference; Ruth Blatt and Gilly Hartal (The Gender Studies Program, Bar-Ilan Univ. ) (Web)
Time: 14.-16.09.2022
Venue: Cádiz, Spain
Proposals by: 27.03.2022
The 6th European Geographies of Sexualities Conference has the theme „Embodied Geographies of Differences: Trans* Spaces, Identities and Solidarities“. Ruth Blatt and Gilly Hartal (The Gender Studies Program, Bar-Ilan University) posted the following call for papers for the session „Decentering Allies: Negotiating Binaries in Solidarity to LGBT+ Subjects and Activisms“:
Allies play an important role in virtually every fight to end oppression. Yet they are often criticized by those they are allied with for reinforcing binaries and recreating colonial models of saviorism that maintain their relative social power (Ahmed, 2004; Blair, 2021). Specifically, within LGBT+ struggles, allyship is negotiated and contested (Mathers, 2017; Spade, 2020; Mathers et al., 2015), raising questions as to the different interests, social and symbolic boundaries and discourses that produce this power relations.
Looking at allyship from a spatial perspective, this session explores allyship’s paradoxical nature in both strengthening and weakening social inequalities. The session will address the meaning of allyship for varied LGBT+ communities along lines of race, ability, class, and incarcerated status. The goal of the session is to advance a conceptualization of allyship that decenters the allies‘ perspective and is sensitive to unequal structures of power and privilege. This in turn advances our conceptualization of allyship in relation to concepts such as homonormativity, care, activism, safe spaces, center/periphery divides and more, across diverse locations.
Relevant topics include but are not limited to:
- Allies and activism
- Allies and media
- Allies and institutional settings
- Allies and safe spaces
- Cisgender and transgender allyship Continue reading