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out queer-lesbian identifications in an anonymous online environment, in order to prepare offline outings, was not used by the interviewees. Instead they
started to interact with others online, only when they were already (partly) outed offline. Only when a queer-lesbian life was generally perceived as livable
and speakable – online as well as offline – the internet became a useful tool to establish contacts with other queer-lesbian women. The study therefore
highlights that online and offline activities and experiences are highly interwoven with each other (Baym 2010). Since the empirical design of this study
can be understood as explorative, this paper wants to encourage further research on LGBT*Q experiences in digitalized environments and highlight the op‑
portunities this would bring to an understanding of the dis/continuities of agency and marginalisation, which characterize mediatized worlds. References:
Baym, N. (2010). Personal Connections in the Digital Age. Digital Media and Society. Cambridge. Polity Press. Butler, J. (1993). BodiesThat Matter. NewYork.
Routledge. Gray, M. (2014): Negotiating Identities/Queering Desires. Coming-Out Online and Remediation of the Coming-Out Story. In Poletti, Anna & Rak,
Julie. (Ed.). Identitity Technologies. Constructing the Self Online. Wisconsin. University of Wisconsin Press.
PN 295 “I Think I’m Quite Fluid with Those Kind of Things”: Exploring Music and Queer Women’s Identities
M. Wasserbauer1
1 University of Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium
Music offers ways to construct, explore and understand identities. In this presentation, the lives and identities of non-heterosexual and non-gender-norma‑
tive women are explored through music. Sociologist of music Tia DeNora views music as a resource in and through which agency and identity are produced
(2000). Music is able to reveal facts about its listeners, but at the same time creates them as people (Frith 1996). In short, music helps to make sense
of the world and the self. Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual and queer (LGBTQ) music audiences have previously been researched as subcultural or group
phenomena; however, the role of music in individual LGBTQ lives has not yet been thoroughly explored. Flanders, Belgium, is an intriguing geopolitical area
in which to look into these topics: ILGA Europe’s annual Rainbow Europe review ranked Belgium second best concerning LGBTQ rights for two consecutive
years, in 2014 and 2015. LGB individuals are largely visible and included in society; and more recently, the focus has shifted to the rights of and care for
transgender individuals. The social and legal situation for LGBTs in Belgium is thus a rather comfortable and safe one, and there are plenty of cultural and
community facilities available for a wide range of LGBTQ individuals.Yet there still are numerous non-normative persons who remain invisible, namely those
who do not identify as heterosexual, but would also not describe themselves as simply “lesbian”, “gay”or “bisexual”. Within a larger oral history project on
the role of music in the lives of LGBTQ individuals, the self-identification of several female narrators strikingly transcended clear-cut definitions: next to
“lesbian”, descriptions like“queer/lesbian”,“fluid”, and“pan”were mentioned various times. The aim of this chapter is to investigate these notions of female
non-heteronormative gender and sexual identities and how the narrators link them to music in their lives. Based on the oral histories of several female
narrators, the following topics are explored: how do non-heterosexual women negotiate labels identifying sexuality and gender identity, and how do they
make meaning of their own sexuality and femininity? How do these women talk about sexual fluidity and being queer? Do they relate their sexuality to
the music they listen to in their everyday life and at key moments related to their sexual orientation of preferences? How does music speak to these women,
and how do they talk about music and their lives? Informed by the traditions of oral history, feminist research methods and the notion of the Queer Archive,
the private as well as public lives of LGBTQ women are accessed through music. Functioning as carriers of memories, music and musical memorabilia are
the structuring elements in the oral histories within this project. References: De Nora, T. (2000). Music in Everyday Life. Cambridge: Cambridge UP. ILGA
(2015) Rainbow Europe (available at ) Frith, S. (1996). Music and Identity. In S. Hall & P. Du Gay
(Eds.), Questions of Cultural Identity (pp. 108–127). London: Sage.
PN 296 Gay the Right Way: Mundane Queer Flaming Practices when Discussing Politics Online
J. Svensson1
1 Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden
This paper is based on a research project studying political discussions in the online Swedish LGBTQ community Qruiser. Qruiser is primarily used for flirting,
dating, finding friends and sexual partners. This is underlined by the name Qruiser, referring to cruising – an activity undertaken by homosexual men
strolling around in outdoor areas known as a space to find other homosexual men checking each other out, looking for, and having, casual sex. However,
Qruiser also offers possibilities for discussions in so-called forums. My research has focused on discussions on the forum Politics, Society & the World (my
translation: Politik, Samhälle & Världen) during November 2012. Previous research on these discussions has concluded that the participation was antago‑
nistic, polarized, full of trolling and flaming practices understood as a way for participants to pass time and entertain themselves. The aim of this paper is to
dig deeper into these findings and study the role(s) of sexual identity when participating in these verbal fights. The research is netnographic through online
interviews, participant observations in – and content analyses of – the political discussions in the forum during November 2012. The empirical material
consists of a corpus of 76 different threads, containing in total 2853 postings. All thread starters and recurrent posters were invited to participate in online
interviews. To date I have conducted interviews with 36 different nicknames and some are still on-going. Since these interviews have been continuous over
a long period of time, I have had the opportunity to adjust my questions on the basis of what kind of participant I interviewed, the answers I got from them,
as well as ideas popping up during the course of the analysis. For this study questions will revolve around meaning-making. By assuming an anthropological
approach to culture (as practices of meaning-making), participation in Qruiser forum discussions is understood as dialectically intertwined with processes
of identity negotiation, self-presentation as well as meaning making. Identity, which is at the core of this paper, is understood as in need of a story, a sense
of ontological coherence and continuity in our everyday life. Expressing identity as a way of maintaining self-made biographies thus becomes important
for motivating participation, a rationale behind political participation, providing it with meaning. Identity is thus not to be understood as essentialized, but
rather as performed, and it is through rhetorical operations that identities are performed. The paper concludes that sexual identity was performed to justify
positions along existing polarising participation frames, that politically engaged users did not shy away from this more mundane and more emotive space
to voice opinions, and that flaming can be considered as a performance of queerness.