Start Date: July 2019
This research is based on collaboration with Dr. Yossi David from Ben Gurion University, Dr. Elizabeth Summerland from the University of Mainz, Germany, and Dr. Adi Moreno.
Over the past decade, we have witnessed the spread of pride parades worldwide, from major metropolitan cities to smaller cities and even rural areas. This process involves the strengthening of activist groups and new political discourses that examine which places are appropriate and fitting for holding pride parades. The study examines queer dimensions of time and space, grounded in affective forms expressed in the existence of urban pride parades, in order to understand the significance of marching in the city in both the present and long-term future.
The focus on a spatial analysis of the pride parade in Ashdod reveals that activists aspire to create an LGBTQ+ space in the city through a central and prominent parade. However, in practice, the space allocated for the parade in the Israeli city is detached from urban life, both geographically and temporally. As a result, the parade creates a temporary "bubble" lasting only a few hours, and its impact on the city and its residents remains limited. Young participants in the parade signify another dimension of temporality, indicating that the parade is held for them, and their very presence symbolizes the potential for the continuation and consolidation of mature queer life in Ashdod.
Therefore, our central argument is that pride parades in Israeli cities embody temporal dimensions in which the present is imagined as a bubble of time: detached from the past, lacking a real future, and relying on an imagined future. Spatially, the research demonstrates that the logic guiding the parade in the global city is transferred to the Israeli urban space with almost no adaptations. This sharpens the question of whether the Israeli city can cultivate a future for the LGBTQ+ community that is not dependent on big-city culture.
Publications
Hartal, G., Moreno, A., David, Y. (2022). Parading for the Future: Queer Temporalities of Pride in an Ordinary Israeli City. In: Blidon, M., Brunn, S.D. (eds) Mapping LGBTQ Spaces and Places. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-03792-4_24
Hartal, Gilly, Sommerlad, Elisabeth, Moreno, Adi and David, Yossi (Accepted). Pride as space of encounter in ordinary cities. In: Lars Meier (Ed.), International Handbook of Urban Sociology. Routledge.