Feminist and LGBTQ Activism and Responses to Austerity in the Manchester City-Region

The project examines how feminist and LGBTQ grassroots activist groups in the Manchester city-region have responded to austerity. It will also examine the impacts of austerity on the scale and nature of feminist and LGBTQ activism within the Manchester city-region.

Aims and objectives

The overall aim of the research is:
◾To understand how feminist and LGBTQ grassroots activist groups in the Manchester city region have responded to austerity.

This aim will be achieved through the following objectives:
◾To map existing feminist and LGBTQ activist networks in the Manchester city region. What are the main activist groups working on feminist and LGBTQ issues in the Manchester city region? What are the main points of cooperation and tension between these groups?
◾To identify the impact of changing funding regimes on feminist and LGBTQ organisations in the Manchester city region. The project will examine the impact of changings in funding regimes on the nature of cooperation between different feminist and LGBTQ organisations and activist groups.
◾To examine how austerity has impacted on the demands placed on women’s groups and LGBTQ organisations in the Manchester city region. Which organisations have experienced changes in their organisational structure and the nature of their activities?
◾To investigate how the changing funding landscape and needs are shaping feminist and LGBTQ activism. The project will identify areas of synergies between activist groups, as well as points of tension and conflict.
◾To identify strategies for more sustainable feminist and LGBTQ activism within the Manchester city-region. The project will identify practical ways of enhancing cooperation between feminist and LGBTQ organisations and activist groups within the Manchester city-region.

The project addresses a gap in knowledge around the nexus of feminist and LGBTQ activist organization in UK, the politics of urban austerity and social movement studies. A body of literature has recently emerged on the gendered nature of austerity in the UK and elsewhere (McDowell, 2012; MacLeavy, 2011). However, there is very little research on the sexual politics of austerity in the UK (though see Brown, 2015), and how austerity is impacting on LGBTQ populations in British cities. Work has been done on the sexual politics of local governance (Munro, 2010, 2014; Cooper and Munro, 2003) but there is none that brings these discreet areas together, despite the overlaps between feminist and LGBTQ activism (Binnie and Klesse, 2012).

The project’s objectives will be operationalized using a mixed-method qualitative approach. Qualitative interviews and focus groups will be carried out with members of feminist and LGBTQ activist groups in the Manchester city-region to generate a qualitative data set of these activists’ experience of, and response to austerity.

The supervisory team would be interdisciplinary and would include Dr. Jon Binnie from Human Geography, in the School of Science and Environment and Dr. Christian Klesse in the Department of Sociology, who have jointly published 10 articles and book chapters on their joint research on transnational LGBTQ activism in Central and Eastern Europe. They were nominated for the Aquila Polonica Prize by the Polish Studies Association for the best article about Poland written in English between 2011 and 2013. Together with Professor Stephen Whittle, they authored the REF2014 impact case study on European and Global LGBT Rights: Changing Legal and Professional Practice for UoA23 Sociology (which was rated as 4*). The proposed research would make a concrete contribution to an impact case study on feminist and LGBTQ activism by expanding the scale and reach of the impact of Binnie and Klesse’s research within the Manchester city-region. Both made leading contributions to ‘Sex’ strand of the 2016 Humanities in Public festival including an international symposium on ‘Queer Film Festival as Activism’ and a conference on polyamory. They have planned a RCASS research showcase event on ‘Dirty Work? Sexuality and Research in Higher Education’ in November 2017 and are planning further public engagement events in the UK and Poland. Their work on LGBTQ film festivals as activist spaces and Transnational LGBTQ Activism in Central and Eastern Europe has already been identified as a possible case study for REF2021.