Rethinking the origins of homonormativity: the diverse economies of rural gay life in England and Wales in the 1970s and 1980s

This paper rethinks the origins of contemporary homonormativity. Through an analysis of archival material from a rural lesbian and gay social movement from the 1970s, it questions the common link between homonormativity and urban neoliberalism. The Gay Rural Aid & Information Network (GRAIN) provided support to lesbians and gay men living in rural Britain and/or who were exploring the possibility of leaving the city for rural life. The network consisted of a heterogeneous mix of lesbian and gay environmentalists and ‘back-to-the-land’ enthusiasts, older lesbians and gay men who had retired to the countryside, and rural-based gay activists. Drawing on archival material relating to GRAIN, this paper traces the diverse economic practices engaged in by rural-based lesbians and gay men in this period. GRAIN members engaged in a complex mix of diverse economic practices and relations, both as a means towards their goal of living more ‘sustainably’ and in order to fit in to the changing post-productivist rural economy. By acknowledging the ambiguous sexual politics of this counter-cultural social movement, the paper questions theorizations of contemporary homonormativity which locate its origins solely in relation to neoliberal socio-economic relations and subjectivities.