Queer social reproduction: co-opted, hollowed out, and resilient

Abstract

The potential for queer perspectives to influence understanding social reproduction has been raised in human geography subfields as diverse as migration studies (Silvey, 2004), population geography (Bailey, 2009) and economic geography (Pollard et al. 2009). The dynamics of social reproduction practices within broader queer (e.g., lesbian, gay, and other sexually non-normative) communities is still relatively under-explored in geography (but see Gieseking, 2013; Gorman-Murray, 2012). Most of my own work during the past decade explores the formation of urban queer communities in North America, population movements into and out of these communities, and patterns of health and wellbeing within them. While I had never set out to examine social reproduction until very recently (Lewis and Mills, 2016), the various queer life events that comprise my research (e.g., coming out, finding work, making friends, and dealing with illness) are also inherently reliant on social reproductive practices. Activism, organizing, and belonging are not just political tools enabling the advancement of legal equalities for queer people, but also everyday practices that allow queer families, neighborhoods, and communities to sustain themselves. In this sense, social reproduction is not just something that can be queered but also something that for a portion of the population has always been inherently queer.

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