Making Black Queer Worlds: Black LGBTQ+ Parties in Brazil and the United States

Abstract

What does it look like in practice to center Black LGBTQ+ people in a party space, and how does this goal become complicated as these parties grow to attract larger fan bases? This paper delves into this question by highlighting two different parties, Batekoo, a Black queer and feminist-focused party that travels to cities throughout Brazil, and Ascendance, a Black and Brown queer-focused party in New Orleans, Louisiana in the USA. The paper is based on ethnographic data from interviews with founders, organizers, and attendees of both spaces, as well as participant observation at both party spaces. I argue that the organizers of these two parties see them as more than simply social spaces; they are attempts at creating alternative worlds where Black queer people can experience corporeal freedom and experiment with different forms of being, temporarily freed from the capture and control of white supremacy and heteropatriarchy. While the growing popularity of these parties amongst white LGBTQ+ people threaten to destabilize the facilitation of these alternative worlds, I argue that organizers continually adapt, finding ways to attempt to maintain the Black queer worlds they created even as the demographics of the parties shift.

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