“We are the margins of the margins” : LGBTQI+ activism in working-class neighbourhoods / quartiers populaires in France and Denmark.

Based on an ethnographic study, interviews and analyses of textual and oral sources, this paper tackles protest practices of LGBTQI+ engagement in territories deemed hostile and how they shed light on reconfigurations of spatial and social margins. LGBTQI+ people living in quartiers populaires are doubly marginalised by the construction of working-class neighbourhoods as LGBTQI+phobic, articulated with homonationalist discourses. Moreover, racialised and working-class people are invisibilised in mainstream LGBTQI+ mobilisations. However, LGBTQI+ activism in quartiers populaires is emerging. Pride des banlieues in Saint-Denis, France, is compared with Nørrebro Pride in Copenhagen. Both prides emphasise their belonging to the urban margins. In between homonationalism and homonormativity, this paper dwelves on the creolisation of prides in the urban margins by exploring their shared characteristics. The groups advocate for pride politicisation as “protest marches” and criticise the central prides of Paris and Copenhagen. They support the creation of their own representation spaces. Visibility is an important concern as they work to ensure anonymity of people demonstrating, refusing the homonormativity of coming-out. The specific interests of multi-marginalised groups are acknowledged, in particular racial minorities. The demands related to race are crucial and prides organise blocks when demonstrating, putting “QTIBIPoC” to the front. They share anti-gentrification claims and have unified discourses on urban margins as “safe places”. Doing so, they reverse the geography of violence associated with LGBTQI+ people and valorise their spatial location. However, the findings unveil two opposite uses of the margins. In Copenhagen, the group positions itself with sought-after margins and keeping the center at a distance. They detach from activists and institutional groups of the centre and participation is bound for QTIBIPoCs only, yet without geographical constraints. Here, margins are a synonym of borders. In Saint-Denis, activists adopt a centralised perpective on margins. They maximise their relations with other protest units and local authorities. The aim is to become the main LGBTQI+ actor in French working-class neighbourhoods. Margins are strategic places to feed endogenous innovations in a polycentric model in which Saint-Denis would be “at the center of the margins”.