The Gentrification of Queer Activism: Diversity Politics and the Promise of Inclusion in London
The book locates promises of inclusion in a longer trajectory of capitalist accumulation, gentrification, the closure of LGBTQ+ spaces in London & an 'EDI industrial complex’ which seeks to extract the productive value of differences in pursuit of greater profitability. It ethnographically traces how inclusion - understood as a ‘cluster of promises’ - is experienced on the ground and who benefits from the promulgation of these promises.
"Burchiellaro makes a sobering and thorough argument that oppressed people's hopeful visions must surpass their own immediate experiences and conditions, no matter how dire. For without an expansive belief in justice for all, the mere acquisition of some basic rights quickly co-opts radical impulses and shifts our identifications from others on the sidelines of power to the newly welcoming ruling structures that only some will ever occupy." Sarah Schulman, Writer
“We needed this stunningly original and poignant book, and we needed Olimpia Burchiellaro to be the one to write it. She shows us how, between the managerial celebration and critical condemnation of promises of inclusion, there are forms of work and ways of life that, without this book, would continue to get completely occluded.” Melissa Tyler, University of Essex
Journal Articles
Moving Gender Across, Between and Beyond the Binaries: In Conversation with Shona Bettany, Olimpia Burchiellaro and Rohan Venkatraman. (2024). Journal of Consumer Affairs. 0(0), pp. 1-10.
The homocapitalist politics of queer tourism: Global LGBTQ+ activism, queer travel and other queer mobilities in Buenos Aires, Argentina. (2024). International Feminist Journal of Politics. 0(0), pp. 1-12.
A (queer) CEO society? Lesbians Who Tech and the politics of extra-ordinary homonormativity. (2022). Sexualities, 0(0), pp. 1-18.
Out of Time: The Queer Politics of Postcoloniality by Rahul Rao (Book Review). (2021). Gender, Work & Organization, 28(3), pp. 1191-1194.
Queering control and inclusion in the contemporary LGBT-friendly organization: on LGBT-friendly control and the (failed) reproduction of (queer) value. (2021). Organization Studies, 42(5), pp. 1-25.
There’s nowhere wonky left to go: Gentrification, queerness and class politics of inclusion in (East) London. (2021).Gender, Work & Organization, 28(1), pp. 1-15.
Powerful writing. (2018). Ephemera: theory & politics in organization. 18(4), pp. 881-900.
Book chapters
“The Queer House Party: Solidarity and LGBTQI+ Community-Making in Pandemic Times” (2021). In: Democracy in a Pandemic: Participation in Response to Crisis, edited by Graham Smith and Tim Hughes, with Lizzie Adams and Charlotte Obijiaku.
“Queering LGBT-Friendliness: Three Possibilities (and Problems) In a Multi-Sited Ethnographic Approach to Diversity” (2021). In: The Routledge Companion to Organizational Diversity Research Methods, edited by Edited By Sine Nørholm Just, Annette Risberg, Florence Villesèche.
Blogs & online publications
How capitalism co-opted difference and why we need to take it back. (2023). The Loop: ECPR’s Political Science Blog.
Putting diversity to work in the LGBTQ-friendly corporation: More inclusion or pinkwashing? (2023). Transforming Society.
Rethinking homocapitalism: LGBT rights, corporate power and hierarchy in the global South. (2020). The Leverhulme Trust Newsletter.
The Queer House Party: Solidarity and LGBTQI+ community-making in pandemic times. (2021). Involve.