Lost and Found: Anchoring Infrastructures of Queer Belonging in Hamilton, Ontario

Abstract

LGBTQ2+ people have long used queer spaces to orient themselves in the world and create a sense of belonging in a community. Years of systemic oppression have formed inequities within and outside the LGBTQ2+ community that has created barriers to the establishment of safe, visible, and consistent spatial footholds. This has resulted in a placelessness that restricts spatial agency for queer people, deepens disparities within the community, and disrupts the continuity and creation of narratives, relationships, and resources between generations and factions. This thesis draws on Sara Ahmed’s notion of queer “orientation”, Ben Campkin’s idea of “queer infrastructure”, and José Esteban Muñoz’s concept of “concrete utopias” to imagine and design an architectural anchor in Hamilton, Ontario that catalyzes a resilient LGBTQ2+ social system, supports a sense of collective belonging, and fosters expansive imaginaries of queer futurities in urban landscapes.