Buenos aires beyond (Homo) sexualized urban entrepreneurialism: The geographies of queered tango

Abstract

This paper discusses (homo)sexualization as entrepreneurial strategy in Buenos Aires. City-marketing capitalizes on Buenos Aires' reputed passion and tolerance. Yet homonormative framings collide with politicized cultures of sexual dissidence. Cultural entrepreneurialism promotes profit-making sexual diversity, but social actors also construct their queerness outside, even in opposition to, market-driven urbanism. This paper argues that queered tango practices differ from those of mainstream LGBT circuits and coalesce with those who contest the genre's touristification, designed to trigger selective redevelopment. The paper first examines the explanatory purchase of cultural entrepreneurialism and homonormativity outside Euro-America. Empirical sections then show that the redefinition/re-territorialization of gayness aggravates socio-spatial fragmentation, while governmental appropriations of tango legitimize exclusionary world-class-city politics. Nevertheless, the paper's first-person ethnography of queer tango uncovers territories of radical difference and trans-local solidarity networks. The paper ends by suggesting the need for further research into the conflictive intersections between urban globalization and globalizing queerness.