Inclusion in the homonormative world city: The case of gay migrants living with HIV in Barcelona

Abstract

Homonormativity has become a hegemonic concept within geographies of sexualities, with critical scholars emphasizing exclusionary practices towards specific ‘unwanted’ subjects. However, the literature has ignored the role of one of the main sources of bias and discrimination for gay men: HIV-positivity. The paper seeks to start to fill this void by showing how the geographies of homonormativity and the migration paths of gay men living with HIV often overlap. The paper builds a diversified and situated account of homonormative spaces as spaces of (relative) privilege and inclusion by looking at the everyday practices and experiences of Italian and French gay migrants living with HIV in Barcelona, the Catalan capital. When considering everyday practices, the paper focuses on three characteristics usually associated with neoliberal homonormativity: individualism; privatization, domestication and sanitization of sexual life; exaltation of coupledom. Methodologically the paper results from fieldwork conducted in Barcelona in 2014, including 16 in-depth interviews with Italian and French gay migrants living with HIV.