Gilly HARTAL, Bar-Ilan University, Israel
Growing attention has been devoted to the political geography of urban social movements, but trauma, its urban context and spatial politics, have been significantly neglected. In this presentation we develop the concept of ‘queer urban trauma’ and its aftermath in the sense of urban and spatial activism, through an analysis of two events traumatic for the LGBT community in Israel. The paper focuses on how traumatic events taking place within urban contexts affect the spatial politics of LGBT and queer urban activism. Based on geographies of sexualities and queer theory, this paper aims to fill this gap by analysing traumatic events in two Israeli cities: the 2009 shooting of two young queers in a youth club in Tel Aviv, and the 2015 stabbing of a young girl during the Jerusalem Pride Parade. Tel Aviv is considered the liberal centre of Israel and a local ‘gay heaven’, as well as a destination for global gay tourism. Jerusalem on the other hand is usually described with a sense of alienation among LGBT and queer individuals and movements where every political, spatial, cultural and financial achievement is a struggle. We argue that the politics of trauma are constructed differently in these two urban settings, producing important nuances of urban activism and politics. Through this empirical discussion, we develop the concept of ‘queer urban trauma’, revealing divergent forms of spatial visibility, presence, and activity of the queer movements within urban spaces.
Keywords: Queer urban trauma|Queer Urban Social Movements| Tel Aviv and Jerusalem| memorialisation|LGBTQ Activism
A103125CM