“Alive & Kicking”: Queer Cultural Memory Of

“Alive & Kicking”: Queer Cultural Memory Of

“ALIVE & KICKING”: QUEER CULTURAL MEMORY OF TORONTO’S GAY AND LESBIAN LIBERATION MOVEMENT THROUGH PHOTOGRAPHS OF VIOLENCE AND PROTEST IN THE BODY POLITIC (1971-1987) by Jessica Anne Wilton A thesis submitted to the Department of History In conformity with the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts Queen’s University Kingston, Ontario, Canada (April, 2021) Copyright ©Jessica Anne Wilton, 2021 Abstract This thesis examines the collective memory of Toronto’s Gay and Lesbian Liberation Movement (GLLM) in the 1970s and 1980s through queer cultural memory. This queer cultural memory is informed by photographs and articles of protest and violence in the gay liberation magazine, The Body Politic (1971-1987). The thesis first develops the theory of queer cultural memory as a type of collective memory specific to queer communities. This memory takes a redemptive form and is informed by “figures of memory” including texts and photographs which have a unique relationship to ephemeral records in queer community archives. Crucially, these texts and photographs inform different queer cultural memories; the texts communicate the textual metanarrative (dominant narrative of the GLLM), while the photographs show the visual narrative. Both comprise the movement’s collective memory. To analyze these photographs, this thesis establishes a visual methodology based on techniques in cultural history and visual anthropology. Using these techniques, it performs a quantitative analysis of 165 images and qualitative analysis of 40 images to establish the visual form of queer cultural memory. Subsequently, it compares the visual narrative to the textual metanarrative in order to reveal the obscured and excluded narratives. Overall, it argues that in the queer cultural memory, the textual metanarrative of the movement differs from the visual record in the magazine. Furthermore, it contends that queer cultural memory, as a tool, can be used to reveal voices and experiences obscured by the dominant narrative, which is largely a reflection of white, cis, gay, men. i Acknowledgements I would like to express my deep gratitude to my advisor, Dr. Caroline-Isabelle Caron, for her countless hours of advice and assistance, as well as her unyielding encouragement despite these unprecedented times. Her guidance and reassurance has proven invaluable, and this project would be nowhere near its level of analytical acumen without her input. I am also extremely grateful to Dr. Laila Haidarali and Dr. Amitava Chowdhury who have also supported me during my time at Queen’s University through letters of recommendation and feedback. As well, I send thanks to Dr. Mona Holmlund, at Dalhousie University, for first introducing me to visual methodologies, supporting my undergraduate explorations into memory studies, and leading me to pursue a graduate degree. I am thankful for the unrelenting encouragement and love from my partner, Matthew Marshall, as well as my family Margaret, Mark, and Jonah Wilton. I would also like to give special thanks to Cordelia Payson and Carlie Visser for acting as my confidants, editors, and sounding boards. Thank you all for keeping my head above water throughout this degree. Finally, I would like to acknowledge the incredible work of activists and academics alike in fighting for queer liberation and documenting queer history. This work has not only laid the foundation for this thesis, but it has also allowed me to write this work as an openly queer woman. Special thanks are owed to The Body Politic’ editorial collective and those at The Pink Triangle Press for their work in documenting this history visually and textually, as well as the ArQuives in Toronto who helpfully pointed me towards the online repository of The Body Politic issues provided by the Canadian Museum for Human Rights. ii Table of Contents Abstract .......................................................................................................................................................... i Acknowledgements ....................................................................................................................................... ii List of Figures and Tables ............................................................................................................................ iv List of Abbreviations .....................................................................................................................................v Chapter 1 Introduction ...................................................................................................................................1 Histories, Not History ................................................................................................................................4 The Body Politic and Toronto’s Gay and Lesbian Liberation Movement .................................................6 Historiography .........................................................................................................................................11 Chapter 2 Queer Cultural Memory and Ephemeral Archives ......................................................................20 Queer Cultural Memory ...........................................................................................................................20 Memory, Archives and Community Identity ...........................................................................................28 Ephemeral Records ..................................................................................................................................34 Chapter 3 Definitions and Visual Methodology ..........................................................................................40 Towards a Definition of Violence ............................................................................................................40 Toward a Definition of Protest ................................................................................................................46 Visual Methodology .................................................................................................................................47 Chapter 4 Remembering the Movement ......................................................................................................62 A Chronology of Toronto’s Gay and Lesbian Liberation Movement .....................................................63 Themes of the Metanarrative ...................................................................................................................68 Obscured Narratives .................................................................................................................................76 Visualizing the Movement .......................................................................................................................82 Chapter 5 Snapshots of Memory ..................................................................................................................93 Signs of Liberation ...................................................................................................................................95 Agency: Never the Victim .....................................................................................................................105 Proud to be Seen ....................................................................................................................................121 Threads of Solidarity ..............................................................................................................................126 Chapter 6 Redemptive Patchwork .............................................................................................................133 Separation of Desire ...............................................................................................................................135 Appendix A Codebook 1 ...........................................................................................................................141 Appendix B Codebook 2 ............................................................................................................................142 Bibliography ..............................................................................................................................................144 iii List of Figures and Tables Table 1 Proportional distribution of photographs in the representative sample ..........................................60 Figure 1 Articles and images of protest and violence over time in The Body Politic, 1972 to 1987 ..........83 Figure 2 Articles and images of violence and protest over time in The Body Politic by data type, 1972- 1987 ...................................................................................................................................................85 Table 2 Total number of articles and images per type from 1971 to 1987 in The Body Politic ..................87 Figure 3 Total instances of violence versus protest in The Body Politic .....................................................88 Figure 4 Total images of violence versus protest in The Body Politic ........................................................89 Figure 5 Photograph of GATE Members at Green Paper Protest in Toronto. Photographed by Gerald Hannon. In Issue 19 of The Body Politic. July-August 1975. ............................................................97 Figure 6 Staged cover image dramatizing the Barracks raid on the cover

View Full Text

Details

  • File Type
    pdf
  • Upload Time
    -
  • Content Languages
    English
  • Upload User
    Anonymous/Not logged-in
  • File Pages
    160 Page
  • File Size
    -

Download

Channel Download Status
Express Download Enable

Copyright

We respect the copyrights and intellectual property rights of all users. All uploaded documents are either original works of the uploader or authorized works of the rightful owners.

  • Not to be reproduced or distributed without explicit permission.
  • Not used for commercial purposes outside of approved use cases.
  • Not used to infringe on the rights of the original creators.
  • If you believe any content infringes your copyright, please contact us immediately.

Support

For help with questions, suggestions, or problems, please contact us