See

discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/263486797

Mobilizing pride/shame: Lesbians, tourism and

parades

ARTICLE in SOCIAL & CULTURAL GEOGRAPHY FEBRUARY 2007

Impact Factor: 1.28 DOI: 10.1080/14649360701251528

CITATIONS READS

38 28

1 AUTHOR:

Lynda T Johnston
The University of Waikato
40 PUBLICATIONS 467 CITATIONS

SEE PROFILE

All in-text references underlined in blue are linked to publications on ResearchGate, Available from: Lynda T Johnston
letting you access and read them immediately. Retrieved on: 19 January 2016
This article was downloaded by:[University of Waikato MC]
[University of Waikato MC]
On: 1 June 2007
Access Details: [subscription number 773269349]
Publisher: Routledge
Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954
Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK

Social & Cultural Geography

Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information:
http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~content=t713708888
Mobilizing pride/shame: lesbians, tourism and parades
To cite this Article: Johnston, Lynda , 'Mobilizing pride/shame: lesbians, tourism and
parades', Social & Cultural Geography, 8:1, 29 - 45
To link to this article: DOI: 10.1080/14649360701251528
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14649360701251528

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Full terms and conditions of use: http://www.informaworld.com/terms-and-conditions-of-access.pdf

This article maybe used for research, teaching and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction,
re-distribution, re-selling, loan or sub-licensing, systematic supply or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly
forbidden.
The publisher does not give any warranty express or implied or make any representation that the contents will be
complete or accurate or up to date. The accuracy of any instructions, formulae and drug doses should be
independently verified with primary sources. The publisher shall not be liable for any loss, actions, claims, proceedings,
demand or costs or damages whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with or
arising out of the use of this material.
Taylor and Francis 2007
Downloaded By: [University of Waikato MC] At: 02:02 1 June 2007

Social & Cultural Geography, Vol. 8, No. 1, February 2007

Mobilizing pride/shame: lesbians, tourism

and parades

Lynda Johnston
Department of Geography, Tourism & Environmental Planning, University of Waikato, Private
Bag 3105, Hamilton, Aotearoa/New Zealand, LYNDAJ@waikato.ac.nz

In this paper I focus on Pride Scotland in order to examine the construction and
performance of lesbian tourism geographies. Queer theories are used to argue that
tourism spaces of Pride Scotland provide important sites for the examination of the
co-construction of pride and shame for lesbian parade participants. Within these sites
celebrations of pride are underscored by notions of shame. Pride/shame politics may be
productive and are lived through gendered and sexualized bodies. I rely on three sets of
qualitative data for this research: (1) individual and focus group interviews with lesbian
and queer parade participants; (2) participant observations and autobiography; and (3)
media reports. The paper describes a particular Edinburgh groupa womens drumming
bandthat performs for Pride. These participants actively choose to perform their
subjectivities in ways they understand challenge heteronormalcy. Discursive constructions
of Edinburgh as a gendered and sexualized city are discussed in relation to Pride Scotland.
I argue that Pride in Edinburgh is predicated on notions of sexualized shame. I examine
how queer women negotiate hostile and/or indifferent reactions to their bodily
performances. In this way I aim to explore the relationships between pride/shame,
performativity, gender, sexuality and politics of resistance.

Key words: pride, shame, lesbian, tourism, queer, performativity.

Introduction to inform understandings of lesbian tourism

This paper examines the construction and
performance of lesbian subjectivities in tour-
ism spaces. It responds to recent calls to
consider gender in queer tourism (Puar
2002a). Specifically, I discuss the centrality of
particular gendered embodiments of queer
at Pride Scotland. In doing so I wish to build
on emerging work in queer tourism and, in
particular, to use theoretical discussions con-
cerning the performance of pride and shame
space.
I have participated in numerous parades and
in many different, sometimes overlapping,
roles (as a parade participant, an organizer
and as a researcher). My experiences of pride
are also about experiences and affects of
shame. This shame may be the body saying
that it cannot fit in although it desperately
wants to (Probyn 2004: 345). In order
to explore these embodied ideas of shame
and pride, autobiography is combined with

ISSN 1464-9365 print/ISSN 1470-1197 online/07/010029-17 q 2007 Taylor & Francis

DOI: 10.1080/14649360701251528
Downloaded By: [University of Waikato MC] At: 02:02 1 June 2007
30 Lynda Johnston
participant observation, material from focus
groups, individual interviews and media
reports. My feelings of pride and shame are
offered in order to raise questions about
subject, identity and subjectivity (Moss
2001: 8). I draw on Eve Sedgwicks (1993,
2003) and Elspeth Probyns (2004) work on
shame as productive to argue that pride politics
are entwined with a spatial politics of shame.
Pride/shame politics have affects and are lived
through gendered and sexualized bodies and
spaces. Pride Scotland 2001 was held in
Edinburgh and the citys sexualized politics
provides the spatial focus for this paper. A focus
on the co-construction of pride and shame for
lesbian parade participants may help question
taken for granted distinctions between affect,
emotion, biography, and the places in which we
live our daily lives (Probyn 2004: 328).
For some time I have been concerned with
acknowledging and theorizing subjectivities in
queer tourism spaces. In particular, for over
eleven years I have conducted research on gay
pride parades, beginning with southern hemi-
sphere parades such as the Auckland HERO
Parade in Aotearoa New Zealand and the
Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras in
Australia (Johnston 2005). Between 1998
and 2001 I lived in Edinburgh and took the
opportunity to participate in, and research,
Pride Scotland as well as other European
parades, such as World Pride Roma in 2000.
These parades take their starting points from
the New York Stonewall riots which began on
a June night of 1969 when police raided a gay
bar, called the Stonewall Inn, in Greenwich
Village, New York City. Three days and two
nights of rioting represent the first time in US
history when gays and lesbians publicly
protested and resisted police harassment. My
work centres on the ways in which pride
parades may be considered emancipatory
events and have the potential to reinscribe
a number of hegemonies. To this end, I am
both dismayed (shamed?) and encouraged
(proud?) with the affects of gay pride parades
and their framing and performance as a tourist
event. One the one hand, tourist spaces of
parades provide an opportunity to queer
space, to be camp, to enjoy the celebrations
that a street party can provide and challenge
heteronormalcy. A focus on celebration has
dominated much of the existing literature of
sexuality and space (Puar 2002a). On the
other hand, parades as tourist spectacles may
strengthen western dichotomous categoriz-
ations of homosexuality and heterosexuality
as distinct, separate and hierarchical subjec-
tivities (see Johnston 2001, 2002).
In some cases, being gay signifies the
normalization and desexualization of a more
radical queer past (Crimp 2002). The pacifica-
tion of queer politics is, according to Douglas
Crimp (2002) a matter of aligning the desires
of gays and lesbians with those of a
heterosexual middle-class. Crimp believes
that notions of shame are the key to under-
standing these paradoxes of gay pride. In this
paper I show that pride and shame are co-
constructions and have spatial and embodied
affects (Barber and Clark 2002, Crimp 2002,
Sedgwick 2003). I will argue that the public
performance of Pride Scotland may bring
about the shame affect (as theorized by Eve
Sedgwick 2003 and Silvan Tomkins 1995; see
also Ash 2005; Gibbs 2002; Probyn 2004).
Shame may arise from a desire to fit in, and at
the same time, a feeling of being out of place.
Individually and collectively, shame is a
response to others. Probyn (2004: 328) notes
that shame is indicative of how the con-
tagiousness of collective affects works to
expose any breaches in the borders between
self and other.
In what follows I first situate this research
within tourism literature that calls for the
Downloaded By: [University of Waikato MC] At: 02:02 1 June 2007
examination of lesbian geographies. Second,
the paper moves on to describe a particular
Edinburgh groupa womens drumming
bandthat performs for Pride. These partici-
pants actively choose to perform their sub-
jectivities in ways they understand challenge
heteronormalcy. Perspectives of queer women
provide some reflection on pride parades
as contradictorycelebratory/oppressive,
proud/shaminggendered and sexualized
spaces. Third, the discursive constructions of
Edinburgh as a gendered and sexualized city are
discussed in relation to Pride Scotland. I argue
that Pride in Edinburgh is predicated on notions
of sexualized shame. Finally, I examine how
queer women negotiate hostile and/or indiffer-
ent reactions to their bodily performances.
In this way I aim to explore the relationships
between pride/shame, performativity, gender,
sexuality and politics of resistance.
Queering tourism
In recent years academics have been paying
attention to queer tourism. Soile Veijola and
Eeva Jokinen were, to my knowledge, the first
to raise concerns regarding gendered and
sexualized bodies and tourism when they
posed the question: is it possible to thematise
the embodiment, radical Otherness, multiplicity
of differences, sex and sexuality in tourism?
(Veijola and Jokinen 1994: 129). Constructing
imagined and daring dialogues (but relying on
real quotes), and focusing on the materiality of
gendered and sexualized bodies, they critique
various tourism theoreticians as producers of
disembodied tourism studies knowledge.
The absence of work in tourism studies
dealing with women, lesbians and gender is
highlighted by Jasbir Puar (2002a) and Marie
Cieri (2003). Puar (2002a) thinks through the
relationship between queer tourism and space
Mobilising pride/shame 31
using theories of intersectionality. She maps
out the ways in which discussions of queer
tourism and queer space have occluded
questions of gender.
A special issue of the journal Gay and
Lesbian Quarterly (2002) entitled Queer
Tourism: Geographies of Globalization is
the first edited collection to address same-sex
sexuality and travel. The special issue docu-
ments, describes and theorizes the growth
of gay and lesbian tourism as well as other
forms of queer travel. Furthermore, the
special issue makes explicit the importance of
queer sexualities to tourism, globalization
and economic systems. Editor Jasbir Puar
(2002b: 1) notes: queer tourism is still one of
the least researched or discussed topics in
scholarly venues. Many of the articles focus
on spatial politics of tourism, such as Venetia
Kantsas (2002) account of lesbian tourism in
Eresos, on the Greek island of Lesvos. Kantsa
(2002) documents the bodily and landscape
changes of the lesbian resort and argues that
this is an extraordinary place that enables
lesbian gazes, a focus on the history of the lyric
poet Sappho, and women-only spaces that are
usually not feasible in other tourist places.
Puar (2002b: 3), who is dismayed at the lack
of attention in queer tourism paid to women,
lesbians and gender, notes that her article is
unique in that it is possibly the only to focus
exclusively on lesbian and queer womens
tourism. While adding analyses of lesbians to
tourism studies begins to challenge tourisms
masculinity, it may be more productive to
consider, however, the ways in which space,
mobility and tourism are gendered and
sexualized. Puar (2002b: 4) states: [T]he
focus on mens travel, to the exclusion of
womens, is both a historically entrenched
problem and a failure to incorporate gendered
analyses into conceptualisations of tourism
and travel.
Downloaded By: [University of Waikato MC] At: 02:02 1 June 2007
32 Lynda Johnston
Other papers in this collection begin to
question and theorize the relationship between
queer tourism and globalization. Gabriel
Giorgi (2002), in his article Madrid en
transito: travelers, visibility, and gay identity
argues that the political transformations in
Spain have made gay and lesbian tourism in
Madrid possible. He argues that gay tourism
becomes a sign of global circulation and that it
sets in motion a narrative that locates bodies
in a geopolitical order, making them visible in
some ways and determining their visibility
under different conditions (Giorgi 2002: 73).
Also discussing cities and queer visibility,
Dereka Rushbrook (2002) argues that local
changes in queer space are related to the global
commodification of space and bodies through
tourism. She found cities queer spaces came
to functionand were promotedas exotic
mixes of the Other. The promotion of gay
neighborhoods as yet another commodity
leads to a form of assimilation into main-
stream culture that reinforces the assimilation
created by the production of the gay and
lesbian niche market (Rushbrook 2002: 198).
State practices are the topic of Puars
(2002c: 101 137) article in this collection
entitled: Circuits of queer mobility: tourism,
travel and globalisation. She documents
several shifts in the gay and lesbian tourism
industry during the last ten years which
include an increase in international travel, a
change from private industrys marketing to
nations public marketing aimed at queer
travellers. She is critical of the ways in which
the tourism industry reifies queer travellers as
gay white affluent males and calls for a more
critical approach to the study of queer tourism
that would include different axes of subjectiv-
ity, such as gender, race, class and so on.
Two papers in this special issue of the Gay
and Lesbian Quarterly address gay pride
parades. One is an ethnographic account
by a journalist at World Pride Roma, 2000
(Luongo 2002). The other paper engages with
material from the Sydney Gay and Lesbian
Mardi Gras (Markwell 2002). Both of these
articles offer insights into how global tourism
has altered the spatial relations of place and
subjectivities of local regions. Markwell (2002)
highlights the relationship of place to time and
notes that Sydney Mardi Gras is successful
because of temporal containment that ensures
the transgressive features are moderated by
the limitations of place and time. As a
consequence, particular bodies dominate the
pride event, while other queer bodies, such as
working-class and non-white lesbians and
gays, are marginalized.
The hard won equalities since Stonewall are,
in many pride events, belied by the material
ways in which harassment and disciplining of
queer bodies has increased. As I go on to
sketch out in this article the politics of Pride
Scotland are tied to, and dependent on, a
politicsand performance ofshame. Shame
is, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick (1993: 9) writes,
an affect that delineates identity but . . .
without defining it or giving it content and it
is at the very centre of subjectivity formations.
Shame points and projects; shame turns itself skin
side out; shame and pride, shame and dignity,
shame and self-display, shame and exhibitionism
are different interlinings of the same glove. Shame,
it might be finally said, transformational shame, is
performance. (Sedgwick 2003: 38, emphasis in
original)
Sedgwick (2003) argues that there are power-
ful and identifiably queer ways of thinking
about shame. She claims that shame is a
uniquely productive affect that vivifies and
consolidates the subject in the moment it
isolates subjects. Shame brings the subject into
being the instant of seeing that one is being
Downloaded By: [University of Waikato MC] At: 02:02 1 June 2007
seen and acknowledged by another. It is
productive and corrosive of queer identity
and the subject may oscillate between being a
wall flower and being a diva (Crimp 2002:
65). Shaming works performatively.
Saying Shame on you or For shame, casts shame phrases. I also looked for words and phrases
onto another that is both felt to be ones own and, at
the same time, disavowed as ones own. But in those
already shamed, the shame-prone, the shame is not
so easily shed, so simply projected: it manages also
to persist as ones own. This can lend it the capacity
for articulating collectivities of the shamed. (Crimp
2002: 66)
Pride parades are visible expressions of
collectivities which may homogenize experi-
ence and exclude those who do not conform to
norms. Parades, then, are complicit with
conventional indignities (the shamed) (Crimp
2002). It may be possible, however, to move
beyond a binary understanding of pride and
shame as separate entities and to rethink
pride/shame through demonstrative affects.
Pride parades are a peculiarly privileged
vantage point from which to consider pride/
shames relationship with performativity,
gender, sexuality and politics of resistance.
The next section draws from empirical
material collected when I participated and
performed in a womens drumming group in
Pride Scotland on 23 June 2001. I draw on this
experience and also two focus groupsone
with twelve participants, the other with
threeand an individual interview were held
two weeks after Pride Scotland. Gay news-
papers are also analysed in order to argue that
lesbian parade groups employ different strat-
egies depending on the pride/shame politics of
the parade. This Edinburgh fieldwork does not
stand alone. As I mentioned earlier, this paper
comes out of a sustained project about tourism
and several gay pride parades in Western cities
Mobilising pride/shame 33
(Sydney, Auckland, Rome). All the data have
been collected, transcribed and analysed by
myself, therefore I am very familiar with the
material. In order to substantiate the themes
I thought were emerging from the data,
I conducted searches for key words and
that might challenge the patterns that I thought
were emerging. An extensive collection of
newspaper articles and video transcripts on
parades, sexuality and the city have been
catalogued and indexed into themes. Feminist
and post-structural perspectives are used to
analyse the data (Moss 2002). My own
position in this research is somewhat ambiva-
lent. Rather stereotypically, I love a parade
and a performance, in fact, any excuse to dress
up! Throughout the research, however, I have
continually questioned parade politics and
have come to no easy answer regarding their
validity for equality and the expression of
difference. From this ambivalent position,
I was excited and nervous about performing
in Pride Scotland 2001.
Queer drummers
I was a member of a womens drumming band
that performed in Pride Scotland 2001 in
Edinburgh. This drumming band formed in
January 1996 and performs at various festivals
and gigs such as the International Womens
Day March in Edinburgh, the famous Edin-
burgh Torchlight Procession, Hogmanay,
Murrayfield Rugby Stadium for international
rugby matches, Manchester Mardi Gras, and
of course, Pride Scotland. The Drumming
band members carry and play heavyweight
surdos, high-pitched repeniques, snare-drums,
tambourines, shakers and bells, to create a
samba-type swing sound as they march for
Pride. Scotland has a strong drumming and
Downloaded By: [University of Waikato MC] At: 02:02 1 June 2007
34 Lynda Johnston
marching tradition from which many women
drumming groups have formed.1
Of the twenty women drummers that
performed in Pride Scotland 2001, sixteen
self-identified as lesbian, two as bisexual and
two as heterosexual. Hence my use of the term
queer, as this diverse group of women live
different sexualized lives, but all are critical of
gendered and sexualized power relations.
The adoption of the identity queer raises
several concerns and it is a term that few
lesbians tend to choose for themselves. The turn
to the word queer, however, is meant to mark
difference between and within lesbians, and
between and within gay men, in relation to race
and its attendant differences of class or ethnic
culture, generational, geographical, and socio-
political location as central (de Lauretis 1991:
viii). In a broader context queer theory provides
ways to understand sexualities such as lesbian,
gay or pan-sexual, as well as that which might
be odd, strange, indeed queer (de Lauretis was a warm sunny day in Edinburgh. In a
1991; Jagose 1996). It also constantly desta-
blizes taken-for-granted ideas by rejecting any
fixed or stable notions of sexuality and gender.
Queer theory offers a critical approach to
knowledge construction, including gay and
lesbian studies, identity politics and even itself
(Jagose 1996; Brown 2000). Put another way,
queer theory demands that social scientists
recognize how heteronormalcy can blatantly
and/or subtly taint the way we think and write
about sexuality. Performing in Pride enables an
articulation of both queer celebration and
protest against normative and oppressive forms
of sexuality.
On the day of Pride Scotland the drumming
group met at the assembly point of the
paradethe back streets of the Old Town
(Figure 1). Approximately 1000 2000 other
people were also gathering and preparing to
march for Pride. A decorated bus and truck
were the only motorized parade entries as most
people were walking. Compared to parades in
London, Manchester, Sydney or Auckland, we
were a small but colourful and loud Pride
celebration. In Sedgwicks terms, our drum-
ming was a performative of pride.
Our bodies and our drums were dressed in
various shades of purple, silver, black and
adorned with glitter. Some of us wore wigs,
some of us exposed flesh with sparkly bras and
shorts, and others had Xena-like outfits. In a
surprising reversal some butch lesbians that
might regularly wear boots and jeans wore
for the first timefrocks and feather boas. We
were all hyped up (Bell, Binnie, Cream and
Valentine 1994: 31) and we had a place to go
(Knopp 1995). We were visually performing
public subjectivities that were outside our
normalized embodied experiences, and as
such, we looked and felt very camp which
added to the festive mood of the assembly
point. Another surprising reversal was that it
focus group interview after the parade one of
the drummersKaren2stated that Pride was
a special drumming event because she says
that her partner Christine is very excited
about all the lesbians! Moira thought it was a
special event for her because its the only gig
with champagne before it. It was agreed by
the drumming group that Pride Scotland was
about celebration. Christine sums this up when
she says:
Christine: Its a very personal celebration for some.
We get dressed up especially for it. We decorate our
drums, we decorate ourselves. We get more into it,
visually. (First Edinburgh focus group, 2 July 2001)
Getting more into it visually is rewarding for
both the parade participants, as well as the
audience. Pride parades may exaggerate the
processes by which bodies and places become
gendered and sexualized. Audiences expect
Downloaded By: [University of Waikato MC] At: 02:02 1 June 2007
Figure 1 Drumming group at Pride Scotlands starting point. Source: authors own collection.
to see bodies (with or without clothing) that
defy normative assumptions of gendered and
sexualized bodies. Nancy Duncan (1996: 139)
notes that gay pride parades, public protests,
performance art and street theatre as well as
overtly homosexual behaviour such as kissing
in public upset unarticulated norms. Chris
Brickell (2000) examines the ways in which
public (heterosexual) space is disrupted by
queer bodies in the Auckland HERO Parade.
Visually, gay pride marching teams may be
considered as camp responses to the polariz-
ation of appearance and reality, of stereotypes
and lived experiences and thereby derive its
humour from these opposites. Susan Sontag
writes that camp is a sensibility that, among
other things, converts the serious into the
frivolous (1966: 276) and one that is alive to
a double sense, in which things can be taken
Mobilising pride/shame 35
. . . between the thing as meaning something,
anything, and the thing as pure artifice (1966:
281). While Sontag emphasizes the frivolous
side of camp, it also has a serious side.
Camp may be a means of defiance: a kind of
refusal to be overwhelmed by unfavourable
odds. It is also a style whereby bodies perform
multiple identities, play various parts, and
assume a variety of roles, both for fun as well
as out of political need.
The need to be camp may come from cities
that are inscribed with intense heterosexual
rigidity. Sally Munt (1995: 115) notes: As
I became a victim to, rather than a perpetrator
of, the gaze, my fantasies of lesbian mobili-
ty/eroticism return to haunt me. Rewriting
herself as a (lesbian) flanuer Munt (1995)
challenges the disembodied and masculinist
construction of flanuer which is evident
Downloaded By: [University of Waikato MC] At: 02:02 1 June 2007
36 Lynda Johnston
in postmodern accounts of gazing tourists
(see also Jokinen and Veijola (1997) who offer
subversive embodied constructions of the
flanuer). Munt argues that in the urban
landscape:
even the protected zones are folding, and yet there
are pockets of resistance which pierce the citys
metaphoric paralysis with parody: Gay Pride is one
such representation, fifty thousand homosexuals
parading through the city streets, of every type,
presenting the Other of heterosexuality, from Gay
Bankers to the Gay Mens Chorus singing Its
Raining Men, a carnival image of space being
permeated by its antithesis. (1995: 123)
The drumming groups Pride Scotland per-
formance might be understood using theoreti-
cal notions of camp. Camp contains an
explicit commentary on feats of survival in a
world dominated by the taste, interest and
definitions of others (Sontag 1983: 144).
Camp performance has the potential to
undermine that which is taken for granted
and assumed as natural. The excessive
performance of masculinity and femininity
within homosexual frames exposes not only
the fabricated nature of heterosexuality but
also its claim to originality and naturalness
(Bell, Binnie, Cream and Valentine 1994: 33).
In frocks, sparkly outfits and Xena-like
iconic costumes, the drumming group waited
for Pride Scotland to start. We knew that we
were near the front of the parade which meant
we were first to face the peopletourists and
localsof Edinburghs main streets. Excite-
ment and nervousness infiltrated our
group more so than at any other gig we
would perform at. We were performing to have
fun, to play loud and to be proud, at the same
time we were uncertain about how the
crowd might react. Our public subjectivities
were at stake and niggling at our feelings
of pride, were feelings of shame. Shame always
plays on that doubleness of the public and the
private, the extraordinary and the mundane.
It is perhaps the most intimate of feelings but
seemingly must be brought into being by an
intimate proximity to others (Probyn 2004:
330 331). The spatial context for these
feelingsEdinburghis examined next.
Spatializing pride/shame
Edinburgh is a city with a famous inter-
national tourist reputation due to vast
amounts of city promotion based on cultural
events and festivals.3 Pride Scotland, however,
remains marginal to city tourism promotion.
Marginality tends to structure most gay pride
parades and indeed, may be a primary political
reason for parades. It may also be the reason
for whyas queer drummers leading the
paradewe felt both excited and nervous.
Our marginal bodies were on display in a city
that has been constructed as conservative
when it comes to matters of sexuality. We knew
that our bodies represented a challenge to
Edinburghs heteronormalcy. Here I wish to
further Sedgwicks (1993) ideas about shame
as affect and apply them, not only to bodies,
but to spaces as well.
Shame both disrupts and makes identifi-
cation. Shame and subjectivity is a dynamic
relationship at once deconstructing and
foundational, because shame is both peculiarly
contagious and peculiarly individuating
(Sedgwick 2003: 36). In thinking about
shame and space, there are several sexualized
and shameful incidents in Edinburgh that helps
differentiate, and individualize, it as a city.
The city of Edinburgh, as Lawrence
Knopp (1998: 159), observes has produced
strong resistances to gay male visibility and
power. Historically, city policies on urban
Downloaded By: [University of Waikato MC] At: 02:02 1 June 2007
development have favoured Edinburghs
middle-class through the preservation of the
citys core (the Old Town) and surrounding
neighbourhoods. Edinburgh tends to be
recognized as a more middle-class and
conservative city than, for example, Glasgow.
Edinburgh has a strong and symbolic Scottish
identity, being the centre for the Scottish
Parliament and the Scottish legal system. This
is important context to a particular conflict
that occurred in the late 1980s and early 1990s
involving a sex scandal focused on the Scottish
judiciary.
The local tabloid and mainstream press, in
cooperation with certain local police officers,
circulated reports alleging that the legal profession
in Scotland (including the Scottish judiciary) had
been infiltrated at its highest levels by a magic
circle of gay lawyers and judges who were
conspiring to pervert justice. (Knopp 1998: 160)
Sex crimes, mortgage and housing allowance
fraud were some of the alleged offences.
Knopp (1998) notes that after many years of
investigation the allegations were found to be
baseless, however, a particular scandalous
discourseand I would argue a shameful
affectremained that threatened the estab-
lished Scottish identity of Edinburgh and the
sanctity of the legal system.
There are several points to be made from
this example. It highlights the powerful ways
in which discourse constructs material places.
During the scandal press invoked metaphors
of movement and penetration and specific sites
were identified as where sex crimes allegedly
took place. Knopp (1998) notes that gay bars
and clubs, hostels, bed and breakfast lodgings,
and cruising grounds such as the road in front
of the Scottish Office, became publicized
geographies of sexual subversion in Edin-
burgh. These became spaces of shame at the
Mobilising pride/shame 37
same time as their identification challenged
heteronormalcy. The scandal highlights
some dominant discourses which construct
sexualized and shamed spaces and bodies of
Edinburgh.
Newspapers can also provoke shameful
affects through silences, as one of the
participants of this study noted. A lone article
that did appear on Pride Scotland was deemed
to be offensive.
Stella: The impression that I get is that over the
years the media coverage [of Pride Scotland] is
virtually non-existent. I mean, I certainly, in the
Sunday paper, Ive only ever seen one article, which
was offensive, in Scotland on Sunday which
I actually wrote a letter in about because that was
the only coverage on the Pride march, and it was all
just so homophobic, and I just wrote and said what
is this all about, whatre you talking about? you
know, and they printed my letter actually, which
was great. (Individual interview, 9 July 2001)
Stellas reaction to the local newspaper might
be understood as a productive affect of shame.
Michael Warner (1999: 3) notes, in The
Trouble with Normal that we need to
develop an ethical response to the problem
of shame . . . The difficult question is not: how
do we get rid of our sexual shame? . . . The
question, rather is this: what will we do with
our shame?. Pride events have a history of
shame that is both productive and corrosive of
queer identity. Stellas letter to the local
newspaper is just one way in which shame
can be creatively productive.
It is worth noting that each year Pride
Scotland alternates between Edinburgh and
Glasgow. One of the participants noted the
difference that the city makes to her:
Moira: You know how I was dressed up in a wig
and everything? And I was goin out to meet ya, well
Downloaded By: [University of Waikato MC] At: 02:02 1 June 2007
38 Lynda Johnston
when I went out to meet you, I felt soooo exposed
and such a minority. I never felt like that in Glasgow
walkin in the streets like that, going to Pride . . .
Theres much more of a celebration feeling or
warmth, a warmth towards it. In Edinburgh I felt
much more antagonist energy. (First Edinburgh
focus group, 2 July 2001, emphasis in original)
Here Moria constructs Edinburgh as cold and
antagonistic. She does not feel welcome,
rather, she expresses feelings of marginality
and Othering. It maybe that Moira experi-
ences shame in Edinburgh, in ways that she
experiences something quite different in
Glasgow. Shame attaches to and sharpens
the sense of what one is (Sedgwick 2003: 37)
and, I argue, what space becomes. Being
out and extrovert may produce Edinburgh
Figure 2 Princes Street, Edinburgh. Source: authors own collection.
as queer space at the same time space becomes
subject to shame. Contradictory feelings of
pride/shame continued to structure the experi-
ence of the drumming girls.
Moira and the band drummed for over an
hour at Pride Scotland. The atmosphere was
fun and we were smiling and laughing when
we walked up and along the Mound then
down beside the National Gallery of Scotland.
When we turned into Princes Streetthe main
shopping street of Edinburghwe faced
people lined up behind the event barriers and
were confronted with people with blank
expressions (see Figure 2).
The leader of our drumming band explains:
Moira: I was terrified when we turned around to go
down the hill to go on to Princes Street. I was, and
Downloaded By: [University of Waikato MC] At: 02:02 1 June 2007
of course we were in a group, we were in the front,
but I found it really like oh my god, what kind
of reaction are we going to get here from these
people?
Lynda: I can just remember when we turned into
Princes Street and those faces were just looking at
us. (First Edinburgh focus group, 2 July 2001,
emphasis in original)
My interaction in the focus group does not
explain fully my anxieties. Like Moira I was
terrified when we faced our spectators on
Princes Street. We had been playing well, with
some ease and plenty of laughter, up until
Princes Street when it became difficult to
keep beat and to follow our drum leader. It was
at this point in our participation in pride when
shame started to underscore our performance.
Shame is profoundly visual (Ash 2005: 512).
We experienced a sudden unfamiliarity on
Princes Street. Our smiles were not returned by
those watching us. It was a space Tomkins
(1995: 135) might describe where one wishes
to look or commune with another person but
suddenly cannot because he is strange or
because one expected him to be familiar but he
suddenly appears unfamiliar, or one started to
smile but found one smiling at a stranger.
Susan: I [was] actually amazed that there was as
many people there were given the amount of
publicity there had been. (Karen: Thats true) So
obviously the publicity was all kind of internal, in a
sense. So the public interface was, to me, almost
accidental.
Megan: I asked lots of people if they were coming to
it and they went Oh, I didnt even know about it.
So if you were sort of interested, or you were a
lesbian but didnt go to the gay venues, you
wouldnt know about it. Nobody knew about it at
all. (First Edinburgh focus group, 2 July 2001,
emphasis in original)
Mobilising pride/shame 39
People on Princes Street, therefore, may have
found themselves as spectators to an event that
most, it seems, did not plan to be at. Before the
parade began they may have been shopping.
Many would have been tourists visiting the
city as this was summertime in Edinburgh.
Some may have thought that Pride was a
forerunner to Edinburghs festival season.
In recent years the commodification of Pride
has meant that these eventssuch as Sydney
Mardi Gras, Manchesters Mardi Gras,
London Pridehave become staged carnival-
type performances for large numbers of queer
and straight tourists. Many of the participants
in this research commented that spectators
did not look like they were having fun. Kate
elaborates:
Kate: I thought it was a really strange going down
Princes Street because there were so many people
there that were so passive about what was
happening. I dont know if it was because they
were [bored] tourists and they were just sort of oh a
spectacle, like they didnt even seem to register
necessarily what was going on. (Second Edinburgh
focus group, 9 July 2001, emphasis in original)
The resultant passive performance of tourists
when faced with our drumming group and
other Pride performances on Princes Street
threaten a sense of well-being that is the main
aim of parade tourismto have fun, to be
proud, to let go, to party. The faces that we
looked at did not reflect back our excitement
or feelings of pride.
Returning to Sedgwicks (2003) work again,
she notes that theorists and psychologists
locate the beginning of shame in infants.
A shame response is produced the moment the
adult face fails to, or refuses to, play its part in
the continuation of mutual gaze with the
infant (Sedgwick 2003: 36). The shame affect
represents the failure or absence of the smile
Downloaded By: [University of Waikato MC] At: 02:02 1 June 2007
40 Lynda Johnston
of contact and may indicate social isolation.
When our spectators did not return our smiles
a disruptive moment was brought into being.
As queer women drummers in Pride Scot-
land our shame response was not to hang our
heads and avert our eyes from tourists that
lined the street. We did, however, focus hard
on our drumming in order to get us through
Princes Street and past passive tourist gazes.
With our heads upright and our eyes centred
on our leader we remembered that this
celebration of difference was also about
contesting notions of (in)equality and oppres-
sion. We attempted to resist imperatives of
shame through prideful affects.
The continual negotiation of this mobile
pride/shame landscape informs the third and
final part of the paper.
Negotiating pride/shame
In a focus group interview, Kate begins a
discussion on some tourists reactions to Pride
Scotland.
Kate: So we were waving at this woman. Sometimes
people would ignore you and sometimes they
wouldnt, right? But there were some younger
people on a bus and they were being really rude.
Shonagh: Yeah. They were giving that sign, basically.
Yeah. It just looked like younger people were just
basically saying fuck off.
Kate: And I think that on that same bus was that
older woman?
Shonagh: Yeah . . . she was blowing us a kiss. And
then when you blew a kiss and I copied you . . . and
she went oooo like that.
Erin: She had a really disgusted look on her face.
(Second Edinburgh focus group, 9 July 2001,
emphasis in original)
This exchange points to the mobility of pride
and shame affects. A spectator enjoyed
blowing kisses to queer parading women but
shows disgust when her kiss is reciprocated by
Kate. It is worth thinking about this brief
exchange as a moment of implied consensus
between the paraders and the spectator, as
Sedgwick (2003: 69) notes a consensus of the
eyes of others. Kate felt pride as she
reciprocated kisses to the woman on the bus,
but shame was immediately invoked when the
spectator showed disgust and refused to accept
Kates kisses. Once shame has been activated,
the original excitement or joy may be
increased again and inhibit the shame or the
shame may further inhibit and reduce excite-
ment and joy (Tomkins 1995: 135). Rather
than turning away from disgust shown by
some spectators, Kate, Erin and Shonagh
continued to mobilize affects of pride and
shame during Pride Scotland.
The collectivity of performing in Pride
helped Stella celebrate her sexuality at the
same time as she tried to hide her identity.
Wearing sunglasses helps maintain anonymity
in spaces where Stella might be recognized.
Stella: You know its like the first time I went [to
Pride London] I was so panicked that I was going to
be on the telly and cause I told my mum I was going
shopping in London, you know, and I mean
I obviously still never tell her where Im going or
whatever.
Lynda: Do you not?
Stella: No and when I went in Pride Scotland in
Glasgow I had to go with sunglasses on because
we passed my dads office, which is you know like
pretty grim really. (Individual interview, 9 July
2001)
Stellas example highlights an ironic strategy
of (in)visibility. While she is out to her parents,
the risk of being recognized by her parents,
or people who know her family, may result
Downloaded By: [University of Waikato MC] At: 02:02 1 June 2007
in family disapproval. Her desire to be
involved in Pride events, however, brings into
tension the dynamics of pride and shame.
As Munt (1998: 25) notes: pride is predicated
on thesometimes consciousdenial of its
own ostracized corollary, shame.
Stella expresses more about the relationship
with her parents.
Stella: I came out seven and a half years ago you
know. Theres just no going anywhere with that
really with my mum and pop. So we dont talk about
[it] and I dont, I hate talking about it and my mum
certainly isnt into it and weve had an argument once
about it. She said why do you feel the need to (a) tell
everyone and (b) walk down the street? Her exact
words were that youve got the exact same rights as
everyone else, you know, dont shove it down their
throats sort of thing. And thats a few years ago and
I dont know whether shes changed her stance on
that or not. I mean my mum says that if I get beaten
up its my fault for telling people about it, rather than
their fault. (Individual interview, 9 July 2001)
Some points can be made about the isolating
affects of shame. Shame appears to construct
and isolate Stellas identity through an
affective connection to the shaming of another,
as Sedgwick explains:
One of the strangest features of shame (but, I would
argue, the most theoretically significant) is the way
bad treatment of someone else, bad treatment
by someone else, someone elses embarrassment,
stigma, debility, blame or pain, seemingly having
nothing to do with me, can so readily flood me
assuming that Im a shame-prone personwith this
sensation whose very suffusiveness seems to
delineate my precise, individual out-lines in the
most isolating way imaginable. (1993: 14)
Despite Stellas parents attempts to isolate her
(through their bad treatment), Stella remains
Mobilising pride/shame 41
resolute about her role in Pride when it is held
on home ground in Glasgow.
Stella: It is really important for local, for everyone
to have their own kind of celebration or whatever.
Um I guess it makes me a bit more vulnerable as
well because you know Im a bit [less] anonymous,
because I know loads of people who could walk
through the streets and not meet anyone that they
know, but definitely in Glasgow I am much more
exposed, you know. (Individual interview, 9 July
2001)
Stella negotiates the performance of pride
and shame both publicly and privately.
In doing so she indicates that there are
multiple and ambiguous roles for queer
women. She mobilizes affects of struggle, re-
appropriation and achievement and is reso-
lute in her commitment to Pride Scotland.
She recognizes that shame produces a
shattered self and that the effort expended
in the maintenance of her queer self can never
be totally relaxed even during her partici-
pation in Pride. Put simply, attention to pride
and shame may allow new insights into the
normalizing categorizations of bodies, spaces
and tourism.
Conclusions
This paper responds to the call to consider
lesbians and tourism (Puar 2002a). A growing
body of literature exists on queer tourism,
however, very little has been published on
lesbians and tourism. The performative tour-
ism space of Pride Scotland 2001 provides
a window from which to investigate queer
womens geographies. Drawing on theoretical
notions of shame as affect (Probyn 2004;
Sedgwick 2003; Tomkins 1995) I have high-
lighted the ways in which shame is uniquely
Downloaded By: [University of Waikato MC] At: 02:02 1 June 2007
42 Lynda Johnston
productive in that it brings the subject into
being at the same time as the subject is
isolated. Focusing on shames demonstrative
character I consider what queer drummers do
with their/our shame.
Sedgwicks (2003) ideas on shame and
subjectivity are extended to the discursive
space of Edinburgh. Previous research and city
newspaper articles indicate that Edinburgh is
constructed as a conservative and middle-class
city. Knopp (1998) shows that homosexuality
is made scandalous in Edinburgh newspapers
by the textual creation of abject male bodies
and sex sites. Knopp (1998) contends that
impossible sexualized positions that circulate
in the media contribute to the making of a
conservative city. It is somewhat ironic that
Edinburgh is a famous and major tourist
destination with numerous festivals held in
summer but it still resists carnivalesque-type
celebrations of sexualities, such as Pride
Scotland. Pride Scotland remains the citys
Other festival event.
As a result of the lack of Pride promotion by
Edinburgh city and Pride officials, tourists find
themselves at an event that they, for the most
part, had no intention of being part of.
A popular tourist destinationEdinburghs
Princes Streetis bounded and spatially
regulated by the placing of crowd control
barriers. Spectators that wait for and watch
Pride Scotland on Edinburghs Princes Street
refuse to return a celebratory gaze to the queer
women drummers. A pride/shame tension is
created that brings subjectivities into being, at
the same time it isolates. Shame is equally and
simultaneously identity defining and identity
erasing. At these moments, queer women
drummers creatively and collectively negotiate
shameful affects.
The construction of queer drumming bodies
relies on the mobility of binaries such as
pride/shame. Feelings of pride and shame
oscillate for the drumming group. Rather
than merely turning inward as a response
to shame, queer women drummers draw on
camp sensibilities in order to challenge
heteronormative understandings of bodies
and spaces. Interactions between paraders
and spectators may produce ambivalent
tourist spaces where affects of pride and
shame are realized. Gendered and sexualized
transgressions are regularly punished and
power relations that inscribe bodies and
tourist spaces can be hurtful and shaming.
Diverse strategies are employed by queer
women in Pride, such as using humour,
exaggerated play of femininities and masculi-
nities, and being present/absent by hiding
ones personal identity.
This paper has focused on a small group
of queer women (including myself) that
attended and performed in Pride Scotland
2001. By providing an account of queer
womens tourism performances I hope I have
prompted others to think through the
embodied affects of pride/shame in queered
tourist spaces.
Acknowledgements
A big thank you to the women of the
Edinburgh drumming group for taking part
and being excited about this research (and for
not growling when I missed the beat!). My
supportive colleaguesAmanda Banks,
Kathryn Besio and Robyn Longhurstoffered
useful suggestions and insights that helped
strengthen the paper. This paper was first
presented at the 30th Congress of the IGU,
Glasgow, 15 20 August 2004 and an earlier
version appears in Johnston (2005). Com-
ments by Michael Brown and Kath Browne
were extremely helpful, as were the referee
reports. Thank you.
Downloaded By: [University of Waikato MC] At: 02:02 1 June 2007
Notes
1 Some of which can be seen at ,http://www.users.zetnet.
co.uk/mally/samba/bands/scotland/scotland.htm . .
2 Pseudonyms have been used for participants.
3 , See www.edinburghfestivals.com . .
References
Ash, S. (2005) The Barnardos babies: performativity,
shame and the photography, Continuum: Journal of
Media and Cultural Studies 19: 507521.
Barber, S. and Clark, D. (2002) Queer moments: the
performative temporalities of Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick,
in Barber, S. and Clark, D. (eds) Regarding Sedgwick:
Essays on Queer Culture and Critical Theory. New York
and London: Routledge, pp. 1 53.
Bell, D., Binnie, J., Cream, J. and Valentine, G. (1994) All
hyped up and no place to go, Gender, Place and Culture
1: 3147.
Brickell, C. (2000) Heroes and invaders: gay and lesbian
pride parades and the public/private distinction in New
Zealand media accounts, Gender, Place and Culture 7:
168178.
Brown, M. (2000) Closet Space: Geographies of Meta-
phors from the Body to the Globe. London: Routledge.
Cieri, M. (2003) Between being and looking: queer
tourism promotion and lesbian social space in Greater
Philadelphia, ACME: An International E-Journal for
Critical Geographies 2: 147 166.
Crimp, D. (2002) Mario Montez, for shame, in Barber, S.
and Clark, D. (eds) Regarding Sedgwick: Essays on
Queer Culture and Critical Theory. New York and
London: Routledge, pp. 5770.
de Lauretis, T. (1991) Queer theory: lesbian and gay
sexualities: an introduction, Differences 3: 1 10.
Duncan, N. (1996) Renegotiating gender and sexuality in
public and private spaces, in Duncan, N. (ed.)
BodySpace: Destablizing Geographies of Gender and
Sexuality. London and New York: Routledge,
pp. 127 145.
Gibbs, A. (2002) Dissaffected, Continuum: Journal of
Media and Cultural Studies 16: 335341.
Giorgi, G. (2002) Madrid en transito: travelers, visibility,
and gay identity, GLQ: Journal of Lesbian and Gay
Studies 8, pp. 5779.
Jagose, A. (1996) Queer Theory. Dunedin: University of
Otago Press.
Johnston, L. (2001) (Other) bodies and tourism studies,
Annals of Tourism Research 28: 180201.
Mobilising pride/shame 43
Johnston, L. (2002) Borderline bodies at gay pride
parades, in Bondi, L., Avis, H., Bingley, A., Davidson,
J., Duffy, R., Einagel, V., Green, A-M., Johnston, L.,
Lilley, S., Listerborn, C., Marshy, M., McEwan, S.,
OConnor, N., Rose, G., Vivat, B. and Wood, N. (eds)
Subjectivities, Knowledges and Feminist Geographies.
The Subjects and Ethics of Social Research. Lanham,
MD: Rowman and Littlefield, pp. 7589.
Johnston, L. (2005) Queering Tourism: Paradoxical
Performances at Gay Pride Parades. New York and
London: Routledge.
Jokinen, E. and Veijola, S. (1997) The disoriented tourist:
the figuration of the tourist in contemporary cultural
critique, in Rojek, C. and Urry, J. (eds) Touring
Cultures: Transformations of Travel and Theory.
London and New York: Routledge, pp. 23 51.
Kantsa, V. (2002) Certain Places have different energy:
Spatial Transformations in Eresos, Lesvos, GLQ:
A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 8: 3555.
Knopp, L. (1995) If youre going to get all hyped up youd
better go somewhere!, Gender, Place and Culture 2:
8588.
Knopp, L. (1998) Sexuality and urban space: gay male
identity politics in the United States, the United
Kingdom, and Australia, in Jacobs, J. and Fincher, R.
(eds) Cities of Difference. New York and London: The
Guilford Press, pp. 149 176.
Luongo, M. (2002) Romes World Pride: making the
eternal city an international gay tourism destination,
GLQ: Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 8: 167 181.
Markwell, K. (2002) Mardi Gras tourism and the
construction of Sydney as an International Gay and
Lesbian City, GLQ: Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies
8: 8199.
Moss, P. (ed.) (2001) Placing Autobiography in Geogra-
phy. New York: Syracuse University Press.
Moss, P. (ed.) (2002) Feminist Geography in Practice:
Research and Methods. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers.
Munt, S. (1995) The lesbian flaneur, in Bell, D. and
Valentine, G. (eds) Mapping Desire: Geographies of
Sexualities. London: Routledge, pp. 114 125.
Munt, S. (1998) Introduction, in Munt, S. (ed.)
Butch/Femme: Inside Lesbian Gender. London: Cassell,
pp. 1 11.
Probyn, E. (2004) Everyday shame, Cultural Studies 18:
328349.
Puar, J.K. (2002a) A transnational feminist critique of
queer tourism, Antipode 34: 935946.
Puar, J.K. (ed.) (2002b) Introduction, GLQ: Journal of
Lesbian and Gay Studies 8: 16.
Downloaded By: [University of Waikato MC] At: 02:02 1 June 2007
44 Lynda Johnston
Puar, J.K. (2002c) Circuits of queer mobility: tourism,
travel and globalisation, GLQ: Journal of Lesbian and
Gay Studies 8: 101138.
Rushbrook, D. (2002) Cities, queer spaces, and the
cosmopolitan tourist, GLQ: Journal of Lesbian and
Gay Studies 8: 183206.
Sedgwick, E.K. (1993) Queer performativity: Henry
Jamess, The Art of the Novel, GLQ: Journal of Lesbian
and Gay Studies 1: 1 16.
Sedgwick, E.K. (2003) Touching Feeling: Affect, Peda-
gogy, Performativity. Durham, NC and London: Duke
University Press.
Sontag, S. (1966) Notes on Camp: Against Interpretation.
New York: Delta.
Sontag, S. (1983) A Susan Sontag Reader. London: Penguin.
Tomkins, S. (1995) in Sedgwick, E.K. and Frank, A. (eds)
Shame and its Sisters: A Silvan Tomkins Reader.
Durham: Durham University Press.
Veijola, S. and Jokinen, E. (1994) The Body in Tourism,
Theory, Culture and Society 11: 125 151.
Warner, C. (1999) The Trouble with Normal: Sex, Politics
and the Ethics of Queer Life. New York: Free Press.
Abstract translations
Mobiliser la fierte/la honte: les lesbiennes, le
tourisme et les defiles
Cet article sappuie sur des donnees empiriques
obtenues du Pride Scotland pour etudier la
construction et la performance des aspects geogra-
phiques du tourisme lesbien. Des experiences
personnelles sajoutent aux materiaux recueillis a`
laide dentretiens aupre`s de groupes de discussion
et dindividus afin de mettre en lumie`re les
politiques concernant les subjectivites, les defiles
et le tourisme urbain. Des theories queer servent a`
etayer largument selon lequel les espaces touris-
tiques du Pride Scotland constituent des sites
importants pour letude de la co-construction de
la fierte et de la honte chez les participantes au defile
de lesbiennes. Des notions de honte accompagnent
les celebrations de la fierte qui se deroulent sur ces
sites. Il est possible que les politiques concernant la
fierte/la honte soient fecondes et vecues a` travers des
corps qui sont a` la fois differencies selon le genre
et sexualises. Dans un premier temps, je situe cette
recherche dans le cadre de la litterature sur le
tourisme qui justifie que lon se penche sur les
geographies lesbiennes. Cet article decrit par la suite
un certain groupe dEdimbourgun orchestre
feminin compose de percussionnistesqui joue
durant le Pride. Ces participantes ont choisi
serieusement de donner leurs subjectivites en
spectacle de facon a` pouvoir contester la validite
de lheteronormalite. Troisie`mement, les construc-
tions discursives de la ville differenciee selon le
genre et sexualisee quest Edimbourg sont abordees
en lien avec Pride Scotland. Je soutiens que le Pride
dEdimbourg repose sur des notions de honte
sexuee. En terminant, jetudie par quel moyen les
femmes queer en viennent a` bout des reactions
hostiles et/ou indifferentes face a` leurs perform-
ances corporelles. Je vise donc a` explorer les
relations entre la performativite de la fierte/la honte,
le genre, la sexualite et les politiques de la
resistance.
Mots-clefs: fierte, honte, lesbienne, tourisme, queer,
performativite.
Movilizando el orgullo/la verguenza: lesbianas, el
turismo y los desfiles
Este artculo recurre a material emprico del Pride
Scotland (Orgullo Gay Escocia) para examinar la
construccion y realizacion de las geografas del
turismo lesbico. Experiencia personal se combina
con material de grupos de sondeo y entrevistas
individuales para esclarecer la poltica de sub-
jetividades, desfiles y el turismo urbano. Se recurre
a la teora queer para sugerir que los espacios de
turismo de Pride Scotland proveen sitios impor-
tantes donde se puede examinar la co-construc-
cion del orgullo y la verguenza de las participantes
lesbicas de los desfiles. Dentro de estos sitios las
celebraciones del orgullo se ven subrayados por
nociones de verguenza. La poltica de orgullo/
verguenza puede ser provechosa y se vive a traves
de cuerpos generizados y sexualizados. Primero,
ubico esta investigacion dentro de la literatura de
turismo que exige el estudio de las geografas
lesbicas. Segundo, el artculo ofrece una descrip-
cion de un grupo particular de Edinburgoun
grupo femenino de percusion que toca en los
desfiles de Pride. Estas participantes optan por
representar sus subjetividades en maneras que
ellas entienden constituyen un desafo a la
heteronormalidad. En tercer lugar, se discute las
construcciones discursivas de Edinburgo como
Downloaded By: [University of Waikato MC] At: 02:02 1 June 2007
ciudad generizada y sexualizada con relacion a
Pride Scotland. Sugiero que Pride en Edinburgo
se basa en nociones de verguenza sexualizada.
Finalmente examino como las mujeres queer
superan las reacciones hostiles y/o indiferentes
hacia sus representaciones corporales. De este
Mobilising pride/shame 45
modo pretendo explorar las relaciones entre la
performatividad de orgullo/verguenza, genero,
sexualidad y la poltica de resistencia.
Palabras claves: orgullo, verguenza, lesbiana,
turismo, queer, performatividad.