Entre a academia e o activismo: Sociologia, estudos queer e movimento LGBT em Portugal

Abstract

This paper focuses on the diverse and complementary character of the relation between academia and social movements, which moulds a social-analytic construct whose implications for queer studies remain largely untheorized. I believe that such theorization can lead to a new application of action research, now centred on the hyphens that allow us to dialectically articulate the knowledges constructed in the daily contexts of academia and of LGBT activism. In effect, if academia resists the temptation of paternalism, futurism and cannibalization, and social movements resist accommodation, embourgeoisement and capitulation, then scholarship and activism, by cooperating horizontally, can become cornerstones of this construct. Anchored on reciprocal and empowering recognitions, in which none of these forms of knowledge is unique or dominant, this construct can lead to a new field of knowledge which I call public queer studies.

Keywords

• social movements
• Portugal
• LGBT movement
• sexual minorities
• queer studies
• ecology of knowledge