Celebration and Protest: A Comparative Study of Pride Parades in Six European Countries
Since the 1970s when the first Pride demonstrations were held in the US, Pride parades are now staged in many countries across the world mounting challenges for the recognition of LGBT people. The project seeks to uncover the dynamics producing similarities and differences between LGBT pride parades using questionaire data collected during Pride demonstrations held in six European countries during 2012 (Czech Republic, Italy, Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK) and qualitative interviews with protest organizers.
n addition we will analyze media coverage of Pride prior to, during, and after the parades. We will investigate the impact of contextual variation on who participates and why. How does support from elites and public opinion impact how individuals and organisations within LGBT movements use Pride parades to further their political goals? The project aims to increase our understanding of the dynamics of LGBT Pride parades, by exploring expressions of tension between festivity and protest, normalization and contention, as well as commercialization and politicization. How do these tensions impact on who participates in the Pride parades? Are such movement-internal conflicts related to the national mobilizing context? What reasons do participants give for their participation, how are they mobilized, what kind of strategies do the organizations staging the parades consider and employ, and how is all this influenced by variation in the national political context?
Project leader: Abby Peterson
Project members: Mattias Wahlström och Magnus Wennerhag