This project aims to analyze Queer mobility, the erotization of Race, and the racialization of space and sexuality. The ethnographic work will be conducted on cruising practices across a transnational setting in three metropolises. Cruising is an eroticized social interaction among LGBTQIA+ people – predominantly male-performing – in public spaces. The chosen cities are London, Johannesburg, and São Paulo. The idea here is of cruising as a transatlantic network deeply connected with issues of mobility, Race, space, and intimacy. 

The goal of this project is to address the making of Queer worlds, which implicates the weaving of a complex fabric marked by "partial connections" (Strathern, 2004) of embodied experiences (Ahmed, 2006; Bento, 2006; Butler, 2009; Csordas, 2002; McRuer, 2006). Additionally, cruising becomes a tool to muddle binary categorizations of Global South and Global North. While LGBTQIA+ populations recognize the same practice in the three sites, those are complex in their own right. Thus, coloniality, racism, slavery, policing, and homophobia are a few of the sociohistorical issues present in Brazil, England, and South Africa that can and should be contextualized. The idea is that cruising in these three sites can be a powerful medium for these transnational populations' socio-economical and cultural transformations. Not for universal cartography of sexuality and the erotization of Race but rather for an intricate understanding of collective knowledge. One that positions queerness, and therefore cruising, not as a supplement but as a core on the crossroads of canonical subjects.

This project "Transatlantic Cruising: racialized spaces, mobility, intimacy, and Queer worlding" is funded by Humer Foundation for Academic Talent.

Supervisor:  Prof. Dr. George Paul Meiu
Co-Supervisor:  PD Dr. Lorena Rizzo

Kaue Felipe Nogarotto Crima Bellini is a Ph.D. Candidate and Assistant in Anthropology at the University of Basel. Having a master's in African Studies from the Center for African Studies (University of Basel) and a degree in Social Sciences (Licentiate) accomplished at the State University of Maringá (UEM). Kaue was a Scholar of the Institutional Program of Initiation to Teaching (PIBID) 2014-2017, carrying out scientific initiation (2014-2015) analyzing the emotional and sexual initiations of young homosexuals in Maringá (BR). Participating in the Health in School extension project (2014-2015) aimed to increase the sexual health literacy of high school youth. Kaue also produced a scientific project to analyze male sexual practices in public spaces (2016-2017). Their master's thesis observed the adaptation process of Queer migrants from an array of African countries in Basel, Switzerland. Furthermore, the Ph.D. candidate is a member of the European Association of Social Anthropologists (EASA) and the Network of Ibero-American Anthropologists (AIBR).

Main areas of work:

• Queerness, embodiment
• Sex, sexuality, gender
• Mobility, migration
• Space-making, political economy

Regional focus:

• Latin America (Brazil)
• South Africa
• Western Europe