(Re)Mapping Queer Mobilities

This year’s conference theme, “(Re)mapping Queer Mobilities,” explores and examines the old, new and shifting landscapes of LGBTQ space and movement—leaving home/re-making home, transnational migration, locating and dis-locating queer spaces, and seeking sexual encounters in cyberspace.  As cities across the United States experience demographic and socio-economic shifts, many point to gentrification as the principal threat to LGBTQ and other historically marginalized communities. Queer enclaves have long offered the LGBTQ community a safe counter-space in which to live and love, socialize and organize. Formal and informal media outlets have been quick to implicate gentrification as the driving factor in the “ghosting of gayborhoods.” This is but one of the multiple factors that help us deconstruct the new and changing ways queer communities move, mobilize and re-make space. We seek to understand displacement and human connection between the material and digital worlds: urban, suburban, and rural communities; nightclubs and organizing spaces; dating apps and social media.