Rainbows of Resistance: LGBTQ Pride Parades Contesting Space in Post-Conflict Belfast

William David Drissel

doi:10.3384/cu.2000.1525.1683240

Authors

William David Drissel Iowa Central Community College

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.3384/cu.2000.1525.1683240

Keywords:

Belfast, Northern Ireland, LGBTQ Pride Parade, Public Space, Heteronormativity, Sectarianism

Abstract

The article seeks to demonstrate how marchers in the annual LGBTQ Pride Parade strategically contest and reclaim heteronormative public spaces in Belfast, Northern Ireland. There is an exploration of participants adapting transnational symbolic representations and discourses to the distinct national-local cultural milieu in which they are scripted and performed. The discursive frames, symbols, and performances of Belfast Pride are compared to those of sectarian parades in the city. The subaltern spatial performances and symbolic representations of Belfast Pride are depicted as confronting a universalized set of heteronormative discourses involving sexuality and gender identity, while at the same time contesting a particularized set of dominant local-national discourses related to both ethnonational sectarianism and religious fundamentalism in Northern Ireland.

Author Biography

William David Drissel, Iowa Central Community College

David Drissel has been a professor of social sciences at Iowa Central Community College since 1995. He has completed a master’s degree in political science from Auburn University, and is completing a doctorate degree in international development from the University of Southern Mississippi. He is a two-time Fulbright Scholar and Oxford Roundtable alumnus who has conducted extensive research in China, Northern Ireland, Germany, and other countries. His research interests include urban space and social movements, youth subcultures in transitional societies, and computer-mediated communication. A frequent speaker and conference participant, he has had papers published in academic journals such as The Cambridge Review of International Affairs, Behavioral Sciences of Terrorism and Political Aggression, and the Asian Journal of Criminology. He has had several chapters published in books such as Habitus of the Hood and Network Apocalypse: Visions of the End in an Age of Internet Media.

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