An essay on the economic, activist, and tourist background of LGBTI Pride in Spain.
In 2017, the WorldPride took place in Madrid, a more massive, visible, and institutional LGBTI Pride than usual. Diversity, increasingly trendy, was used to sell and to persuade. The competition to attract more investments, tourists, and positioning has made LGBTI events like this—from large-scale LGBTI Prides to more modest promotional campaigns—gain more prominence as attractions.
However, this tourist visibility of sexual and gender diversity is not free from criticism: different social movements and academic analyses have highlighted the implications of certain stances and marketing approaches. The variety of bodies and interests represented; the links between business powers, politics, and reformist LGBTI activism; the gentrification of tourist neighborhoods; or the role of sponsorships are just some of the central topics of study and critique.
Through ethnographic research, this book analyzes the celebration of a large-scale event to study how the public tourist promotion of a major city, reformist LGBTI activism, and the images and discourses of sexual and gender diversity interrelate.
