Exploding the community: materialities of Manchester's LGBT community

Abstract

This thesis is an exploration of the roles played by materialities in Manchester's lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans (LGBT) Community. This has been conducted as an ethnographic research project, using ethnographic methods of participant observation and interviews, although it doesn't fit neatly into traditional ethnographic categories. In 3 empirical case studies: a community choir; a group of volunteer archivists; and a public park which is home to several community memorials and where important community events take place, I identify very different types of materialities implicated in and influencing the community in very different ways. One aim of the research has been to draw upon and add to the extensive literature (the result of a ' material tum' in the humanities and the social sciences) exploring the importance of materialities ( cf. Hicks and Beaudry 2010) in our social worlds. Another aim has been to demonstrate that bringing a novel, material, perspective to bear upon urban LGBT communities can provide new ways of exploring such contexts. However, the core aim of the research has been to engage with materialities on their own terms (qua materialities cf. Heidegger 1971) as actors, and as non-human entities. Drawing upon Law (2004) and Mol (2002), the research employs a range of approaches (which I categorise loosely as either ' representational' e.g. Miller 2008, Turkle 2007, Tilley 1994, or ' structural' e.g. Latour 2005) as a methodological strategy which depends upon a commitment to 'mess' , in order to highlight the ' multiplicity' and complexity of materialities. I propose that in the interstices between these opposing ( even incommensurable) frameworks can be partly apprehended the peculiar qualities and particular agencies of materialities, the resonances and influences of which are indubitable, but elusive and difficult to identify. As such, the research offers a novel and alternative ontology and methodology for exploring materialities, and the relationship between persons and materialities.

Date of Award	2014
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Bangor University
Supervisor	Thomas Yarrow (Supervisor) & Howard Davis (Supervisor)