Karine Duplan

Université de Genève, Department of Geography and Environment & Institute of Gender Studies, Faculty Member

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I am a feminist geographer working on bodies, (urban) space and (transnational) mobilities. My research explores issues of social diversity and spatial inclusivity through a focus on processes of inequalities and privileges in the context of globalisation. Drawing on an intersectional perspective, I aim for a better understanding of boundary-making processes in everyday politics, in terms of gender and sexuality, class, race and ethnicity at different scales.

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Papers by Karine Duplan

Pinkwashing Policies or Insider Activism? Allyship in the LGBTIQ+ Governance–Activism Nexus

Urban planning, Apr 11, 2023

While there has been an increase in the rights and visibility of LGBTIQ+ people in (most) Europea... more While there has been an increase in the rights and visibility of LGBTIQ+ people in (most) European countries, critiques of what is denounced as instrumentalization by public policies of LGBTIQ+ issues have also developed. In this context, one can ask how to qualify the strengthened relationships between governance and activism. In this article, I propose to explore the paradoxical articulation of the multiple sites from where the cause support can be enacted. Drawing on a Geneva-based ethnographic research project, I use the concept of governance-activism nexus to reflect on the liminal position of public officials in charge of implementing equality agendas. Troubling further the insider-outsider binary divide, I argue that they act towards a discrete queering of municipal governance from the inside, through the practice of allyship in solidarity. In so doing, this article offers future research perspectives for the study of urban/regional LGBTIQ+ activism and politics, while allowing us to question our own position as critical or activist researchers in the field of feminist and queer geographies.

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The Expatriate as Heroic Figure of Globalization? Privileged Migration and Neoliberal Ideology in Luxembourg

BRILL eBooks, Nov 14, 2022

Shaping the Inclusive City: Power Relations, Regulations, and the Role of Social Work

Social Inclusion

While being celebrated as the ideal of inclusiveness, cities also constitute the place of differe... more While being celebrated as the ideal of inclusiveness, cities also constitute the place of different types of discrimination, which some public policies intend to tackle. The “urban” has also been pointed out as the locus where vice and lust concentrate, leading public policies to develop regulations for public space aiming to maintain the social order of the city. This, in turn, contributes to the definition of the contours of urban moral economies, which are continuously shaped by processes of in/exclusion. Hence, crucial is the need to further explore how cities can be welcoming to their dwellers and newcomers, as well as the role public policies (have to) play in the vision of the future of an open and inclusive city. In so doing, social work is certainly called upon to play a major role based on its historical presence in cities and its know‐how in accompanying transitions. How does social work contribute to the definition of an inclusive city? By presenting new and original res...

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Pinkwashing Policies or Insider Activism? Allyship in the LGBTIQ+ Governance–Activism Nexus

Urban Planning

While there has been an increase in the rights and visibility of LGBTIQ+ people in (most) Europea... more While there has been an increase in the rights and visibility of LGBTIQ+ people in (most) European countries, critiques of what is denounced as instrumentalization by public policies of LGBTIQ+ issues have also developed. In this context, one can ask how to qualify the strengthened relationships between governance and activism. In this article, I propose to explore the paradoxical articulation of the multiple sites from where the cause support can be enacted. Drawing on a Geneva-based ethnographic research project, I use the concept of governance–activism nexus to reflect on the liminal position of public officials in charge of implementing equality agendas. Troubling further the insider–outsider binary divide, I argue that they act towards a discrete queering of municipal governance from the inside, through the practice of allyship in solidarity. In so doing, this article offers future research perspectives for the study of urban/regional LGBTIQ+ activism and politics, while allowi...

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Toward a Queering of the Right to the City: Insights from the Tensions in LGBTIQ+ Politics in Geneva, the “Capital of Peace”

Springer eBooks, 2022

In book: Mapping LGBTQ Spaces and Places

Listen up!

Routledge eBooks, Mar 14, 2023

Les géographies féministes : des géographies engagées, au-delà du genre et des sexualités

Presses universitaires de Vincennes eBooks, Aug 30, 2022

In book: Fragments de géographie Publisher: Presses Universitaires de Vincennes

Espace public : quelle reconnaissance pour les femmes ?

Pouvoir acceder a des lieux sans crainte du jugement ou de la potentielle agression ; pouvoir etr... more Pouvoir acceder a des lieux sans crainte du jugement ou de la potentielle agression ; pouvoir etre citoyennes ; pouvoir travailler aux memes conditions salariales que les hommes ; pouvoir disposer de son corps dans l’espace public, sont autant d’enjeux du quotidien des femmes dans la ville et les territoires. Ces expressions varient bien sur selon les contextes territoriaux, politiques, sociaux et culturels. Cet ouvrage explore les empechements et les possibilites pour les femmes d’appartenir a la ville et nous apporte alors un eclairage saisissant sur la question du droit a la ville des femmes dans plusieurs pays du monde.

Provincial et queer : refuser d’être invisible en créant un espace queer dans un monde non-queer

Cybergeo: European Journal of Geography, 2017

L’experience du Queer Fruits Film a mis au jour l’existence d’une vitalite importante de la cultu... more L’experience du Queer Fruits Film a mis au jour l’existence d’une vitalite importante de la culture cinematographique LGBTQI independante, ainsi que d’un public enthousiaste en attente de decouvrir des films revelant les histoires de nos vies quotidiennes a l’ecran. L’isolement geographique et la faiblesse relative des ressources sociales et culturelles soulignent egalement en quoi il est important de refuser d’etre invisible, tout comme le besoin de creer des espaces publics queers au sein desquels les vies LGBTQI peuvent etre mises en valeur - en particulier dans les zones de province.Les changements demographiques au sein des communautes LGBTQI au cours du XXIe siecle meritent d’etre examinees avec soin et respectueusement representes dans tous les espaces. La croissance internationale des communautes transgenres demande notamment a etre prise en compte et integree dans ces representations.La responsabilite de creer une societe culturellement pertinente, juste et sensible, releve...

Agier M., 1999, L´invention de la ville. Banlieues, townshisp, invasions et favelas, Paris, Editions des Archives Contemporaines

Cybergeo, 2000

Au cœur de la ville : l´invention de l´urbanite culturelle A l´heure de la mondialisation, la vil... more Au cœur de la ville : l´invention de l´urbanite culturelle A l´heure de la mondialisation, la ville generique parait se reproduire a l´infini, telle une post-ville sans histoire depourvue de toute specificite. Dans ce nouvel essai toutefois, l´anthropologue Michel Agier nous invite a repenser l´urbain. Par l´exploration des nouvelles formes de citadinite, il s´interesse au faconnement des identites individuelles et collectives au sein meme des mutations de l´espace urbain contemporain. Chemin...

What Would an Inclusive City for Gender and Sexual Minorities Be Like? You Need to Ask Queer Folx!

Social Inclusion

From fights against racism to women’s inclusion, from access to education to integration of migra... more From fights against racism to women’s inclusion, from access to education to integration of migrants: “Inclusion” and the “inclusive city” have been used in many ways and at different scales, running the risk of becoming a kind of catchall. Following increasing use by public authorities, media, and urban professionals, the inclusive city now serves as a normative framework for urban development. Although it is aimed at social cohesion, one nevertheless wonders whether it has not become more of a buzzword that obfuscates the reproduction of power relations. Moreover, while being somehow mainstreamed into institutional discourses, the inclusive city has been quite overlooked so far by academics, and an effort is needed to clarify its conceptualisation and democratic potential. This article provides a theoretical and critical perspective on how the concept of inclusion is used in urban public policies in relation to gender, by examining the public these policies address. Using a multis...

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Infrastructures of migration and the ordering of privilege in mobility

Migration Studies, Feb 16, 2023

This article explores privilege in migration. Rather than focus on practices of privilege at micr... more This article explores privilege in migration. Rather than focus on practices of privilege at micro-scales, the article examines how privilege in migration is ordered and disciplined through meso-and macro-level infrastructures (transnational organisations, higher education institutes, and governmental visa policies). The article questions where a pervasive discourse of mobility as achievement comes from and how it becomes materialised in the promotion and facilitation of forms of mobility. It argues that privilege in mobility becomes disciplined through neoliberal discourses of globalisation that idealise mobility as cosmopolitanism, whilst simultaneously producing this as an elite subject positioning.

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Towards geographies of privileged migration: An intersectional perspective

Progress in Human Geography, Mar 3, 2023

While geography has traditionally ‘looked down’ in the search for social justice, a recent trend ... more While geography has traditionally ‘looked down’ in the search for social justice, a recent trend in the social sciences has argued for thinking through privilege. Taking this call seriously, this paper draws on feminist scholarship and uses intersectionality to demonstrate that reflections about privilege are imperative in the pursuit of social justice. Through laying the groundwork for a theorisation of privilege within and beyond migration geographies, we use transnational circulation, as one of the – unquestioned and taken for granted – characteristics of elites, arguing that an understanding of privilege in migration is critical to understanding and combatting inequalities and injustices. This leads us to argue for the need to explore privilege in relation to its others, such as precarity and vulnerability. We conclude by advancing a research agenda on privilege in (migration) geography that draws upon a feminist ethics of responsibility.

Infrastructures of migration and the ordering of privilege in mobility

Migration Studies

This article explores privilege in migration. Rather than focus on practices of privilege at micr... more This article explores privilege in migration. Rather than focus on practices of privilege at micro-scales, the article examines how privilege in migration is ordered and disciplined through meso- and macro-level infrastructures (transnational organisations, higher education institutes, and governmental visa policies). The article questions where a pervasive discourse of mobility as achievement comes from and how it becomes materialised in the promotion and facilitation of forms of mobility. It argues that privilege in mobility becomes disciplined through neoliberal discourses of globalisation that idealise mobility as cosmopolitanism, whilst simultaneously producing this as an elite subject positioning.

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Pasts, presents and futures of feminist geographies in Switzerland

by Karine Duplan and Elisabeth Militz

GeoAgenda, 2021

On 28th February, 2020, the kick-off event of the ASG-funded thematic group “Feminist Geographies... more On 28th February, 2020, the kick-off event of the ASG-funded thematic group “Feminist Geographies” took place at the University of Neuchâtel. More than thirty scholars and students working on questions of space, place, earth, and the body met to discuss feminist and intersectional geographical concepts and perspectives. The highlight of the event was a panel discussion with Stefanie C. Boulila, Juliet Fall, Yvonne Riaño, Marina Richter, Carolin Schurr, Karin Schwiter and Miriam Tola, who accepted our invitation to discuss their pasts, presents and futures as feminist scholars working with(in) geography. To share this conversation, we weave together some of their key messages into a plaidoyer for feminist geographies.

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A reflexive perspective on privileged migration studies. What's the point?

In political and popular discourse, migration is alternately portrayed as a problem to be managed... more In political and popular discourse, migration is alternately portrayed as a problem to be managed or a danger to be fought. Consequently, the term appears to carry with it a set of social and political issues. Drawing on reflexive migration studies, it seems therefore appropriate to question how some mobile people are seen as migrants and why others are not? Moreover, how can migration studies be more reflexive about the normative assumptions that still frame the knowledge production in the field? https://nccr-onthemove.ch/blog/a-reflexive-perspective-on-privileged-migration-studies-whats-the-point/

Moral Economies, Urban Subjectivities, and Contested Policies

ACME: An International Journal for Critical Geographies, Jul 2, 2021

Où sont les femmes ? La transposition spatiale des normes de genre : l'usage des cafés par les femmes à Luxembourg

« Au milieu du xixe siècle l’espace public est une notion vide de sens pour les femmes, il n’exis... more « Au milieu du xixe siècle l’espace public est une notion vide de sens pour les femmes, il n’existe que dans la mesure où il offre les conditions physiques et morales pour y reconstituer un chez-soi. De nos jours, il renvoie des normes de pratiques égalitaires et se présente comme un espace qu’hommes et femmes peuvent pareillement utiliser, s’approprier. »Jacqueline Coutras, « Hommes et femmes dans l’espace public français depuis un siècle », Cahiers de Géographie du Québec, vol. 31, no 83, 1..

Pasts, presents and futures of feminist geographies in Switzerland

On 28th February, 2020, the kick-off event of the ASG-funded thematic group "Feminist Geogra... more On 28th February, 2020, the kick-off event of the ASG-funded thematic group "Feminist Geographies" took place at the University of Neuchâtel. More than thirty scholars and students working on questions of space, place, earth, and the body met to discuss feminist and intersectional geographical concepts and perspectives. The highlight of the event was a panel discussion with Stefanie C. Boulila, Juliet Fall, Yvonne Riaño, Marina Richter, Carolin Schurr, Karin Schwiter and Miriam Tola, who accepted our invitation to discuss their pasts, presents and futures as feminist scholars working with(in) geography. To share this conversation, we weave together some of their key messages into a plaidoyer for feminist geographies.

The Sexual Politics of Nation Branding in Creative Luxembourg. A Queer Perspective

This paper offers a queer reading of the sexual politics of nation branding in the context of cre... more This paper offers a queer reading of the sexual politics of nation branding in the context of creative Luxembourg through an intersectional perspective. While creative city discourses and policies have been largely scrutinised by critical scholars who have pointed out their classed, gendered and racialised exclusionary ways of working, nation branding has largely been overlooked in its relationship to the entrepreneurial urban shift. The ways it shapes desirable forms or subjectivities and citizenships while reworking the boundaries of sexual in/ex-clusion needs however further scrutiny. I argue in this paper that nation branding, defined as a communication tool for creative cities to promote their image and remain competitive at a global scale, contributes to the reiteration of social inequalities through the production of neoliberal urban subjectivities that are sexually normative. Nation branding provides hence a heteronormative framing of sexual subjectivities and citizenships, ...

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Karine Duplan

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