An ethnography of urban citizenship, global belonging, and queerness in a rapidly growing provincial city in the Global South, Queerly Cosmopolitan explores how people develop a sense of belonging in a city understood by many to be unimportant and in the middle of nowhere. In his exploration of the city of Teresina and its inhabitants' attempts to establish a sense of belonging and self-worth, Timothy Eugene Murphy creatively employs queer theory to investigate a community of bohemians. As he follows the participants through different realms of lifenocturnal bohemia, work, family, and intimate friendshipsMurphy demonstrates how widely circulating cultural forms, from music to sexuality, offer upwardly mobile communities ways to fashion cosmopolitan lives in even the most peripheral locations.

Offers an ethnographic exploration of middle-class life in a "middle-of-nowhere" city Creatively deploys queer theory to investigate a community attempting to connect to a broader, globalized world despite geographical restraints Theories of the "local cosmopolitans" developed here have valuable implications for anthropology, sociology, urban studies, gender and sexuality studies, and Latin American studies

Autorentext
Timothy Eugene Murphy is Assistant Professor of Urban Studies at Worcester State University, USA.

Inhalt

1. A Middle-of-Nowhere Somewhere.- 2. From Terehell to Terenowhere: Place-making in Teresina.- 3. Chique Distinction in a Big Small Town.- 4. Nocturnal Bohemia.- 5. Black Sheep by Day.- 6. Friends of Dusk and Dawn.- 7. Epilogue.