The Dislocation of LGBT Politics: Pride, Globalization, and Geo-Temporality in Uganda and Serbia

Abstract

Scholars consider the translatability and efficacy of “western” LGBT politics as they diffuse, but pay little attention to the role of its histories and cultures as geo-temporal phenomena. Focusing on Pride events, this article demonstrates how such oversights inhibit a full account of the widely diverse impacts of similar actions in different places. We explore the ways in which Pride events, as a mode of activism, go global and integrate in vastly different contexts: Serbia and Uganda. Paying particular attention to acts of violence and the instrumentalization of Pride as geopolitical, we argue that divergent outcomes connect to the diffusion of Pride as creative of geo-temporal dislocations of politics and history. Incorporating the concept of extraversion, we demonstrate that the intertwining of the domestic and international facilitates the transformation of politics in terms of foreseen outcomes and unintended consequences. Overall, we propose a framework that advances an understanding of homophobic and homophilic politics as instrumentalizations of geo-temporal dislocations that underpin the global fight for LGBT rights. As a challenge to the progress narrative nearly intrinsic to western international relations, this approach is useful to explore processes that shape other types of transnational politics, such as democracy, climate change, and peace movements.