Abstract
When I first heard geographers of sexualities talking about ‘equalities’ landscapes, I was perplexed: why ‘equalities’ and not justice, difference or recognition? I soon realized that this contested concept referred to the context created by the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) rights movement that, in the United Kingdom, culminated in the 2010 Equality Act. By increasing political inclusions for LGBT citizens, these measures rendered some more ‘ordinary’ than others. ‘Equalities’, then, signals a particularly contested political climate for LGBT people, activists and community institutions as they grapple with a new political target, what has elsewhere been broadly described as ‘homonormativity’.
It is here that Kath Browne and Leela Bakshi’s Ordinary in Brighton is situated. The book is a product of the authors’ participation in a community-based LGBT research project called Count Me in Too, conducted through a community-university partnership. A follow-up to an earlier project, it sought to evaluate the unevenness of LGBT inclusions, a kind of intersectional stock-taking of LGBT lives in Brighton and Hove in the equalities era. However, the book is not just a report on continued exclusions – the authors have done this extensively elsewhere. Ordinary in Brighton is rather a reflection on their learning from such a research project and a case study of LGBT lives and activisms in Brighton, a city imagined as the ‘gay capital of the UK’. Specifically, authors analyze the impacts of increased ‘ordinariness’ in terms of what it does or can do in a place that is imagined as ‘extraordinary’ for LGBT populations.
One of the most important contributions of this book is that it reports on LGBT community-based research in ways that few other projects could. Brighton and Hove have a disproportionate LGBT population who significantly impact local governance and place promotion. The project was large and included a wide array of identities and interests. It also generated data using many different collection methods (individual interviews, surveys, follow-up discussions, and focus groups). Reading through the chapters, there are encounters with the participants from the hate crimes or BME (Black, minority, ethnic) focus groups as well as diverse individual stories of LGBT life in Brighton. There are also interviews with LGBT activists working within the state (insider-activists) and those representing a range of LGBT community groups. Ultimately, the book provides a very rich portrait and analysis of the inner workings of LGBT municipal politics that has yet to be explored to this extent elsewhere.
A second major contribution is the authors’ spatial exploration of possibilities of the pursuit of the politics of ordinariness. Charting an alternative to an assimilationist stance that focuses on rights and the more hopeless critique of homonormativities that has dominated queer scholarship, they propose that there is no necessary relationship between becoming more ordinary and being incorporated into normative regimes. For these authors, understanding the complexity of LGBT politics in the equalities era lies in the tensions surrounding the experience and pursuit of becoming commonplace. Using this framework, they examine Brighton’s gay scene spaces, community exclusions, safe spaces, activism, and pride politics. What is more, they argue that these tensions, in a city that prides itself on LGBT inclusions, are politically productive: the promotion of Brighton as an inclusive place for LGBT populations can be used to draw attention to continued exclusions and to reframe activism when it falls short of this ideal.
If the deftly argued relationship between a politics of ordinariness and the exceptional character of Brighton was my favorite part of this work, it also caused me some discomfort. I kept wondering about the gap between pursuing the politics of ordinariness and one of difference. The authors point out that for many of the participants, the desire to be commonplace, as opposed to normal, coexisted with the enjoyment of difference. However, I still found that this relationship was under-theorized. What kind of political ideals do we need for LGBT people to become ‘common-place’ without the assimilation of their differences? I also wondered about the spatial politics of these arguments. For example, what is the end-game of the politics of ordinariness in urban space? While the demand to be commonplace everywhere does seem to envision a more just city, it also rehearses arguments that equate dispersal with assimilation.
I am not sure that these are criticisms of Ordinary in Brighton so much as new avenues for discussion raised by its contribution. The exploration of an alternative to the binary of a politics of assimilation and opposition that it represents make it a very valuable and timely contribution whose influence will extend far beyond the confines of geographies of sexualities. Its rich exploration of conducting community-based research and of the multiplicity of LGBT politics and experiences will enable it to make that contribution in a very powerful way.