Abstract

ENGUIX, Begonya. Protest, market and identity in the LGTB Pride Celebrations in Spain. Convergencia [online]. 2017, vol.24, n.73, pp.165-186. ISSN 2448-5799.

On the first Saturday of July, Madrid hosts the State LGTB (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender) Pride Demonstration with participants from LGTB activist groups, trade unions, political parties, NGOs and entrepreneurship. It involves around one million people and generates a profit of around 110 million euros. The participation of commercially sponsored floats along with the large influx of tourists that visit Madrid feed the discussions on the commercialization of the event and on the relationship between neoliberalism, identity and protest. These debates refer to the old tensions between critical activism and assimilationist activism. This article is based on a continued ethnographic fieldwork that combines participant observation, digital ethnography and in-depth interviews. We propose that the tensions between protest, activism, market and spectacle can be productive —as the Spanish LGTB movement has proved— and can create a new landscape of inclusive, hybrid and vindicating identity conceptions.

Keywords : LGTB identities; marketization; new models for protest; hybridization..

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