Rainbow Diplomacy: LGBTQ+ Rights and Everyday Diplomatic Practice at Pride

Conway, D. and Edenborg, E. 2025. Rainbow Diplomacy: LGBTQ+ Rights and Everyday Diplomatic Practice at Pride. International Affairs.

TitleRainbow Diplomacy: LGBTQ+ Rights and Everyday Diplomatic Practice at Pride
TypeJournal article
AuthorsConway, D. and Edenborg, E.
Abstract

This article explores how LGBTQ+ advocacy and involvement in local LGBTQ+ activism is enacted and mediated by diplomats and everyday practices of diplomacy. The article analyses the interconnections and disconnections between high level foreign and diplomatic policy discourses and local enactments and positions by embassies and diplomats. In doing so, the article assesses states with ‘feminist’ and expressed commitments to LGBTQ+ advocacy in foreign policy and the reality of these commitments on the ground. We argue that much like debates about the ‘pinkwashing’ or ‘rainbow washing’ of LGBTQ+ rights activism by corporations and states at LGBTQ+ Pride, focus on ‘Rainbow Diplomacy’ at Pride reveals the inconsistent and changeable application of these commitments locally and transnationally, as well as across time and place, reveals the precarity and vicarious nature of human rights commitments, and LGBTQ+ advocacy, in particular. The article draws from interviews and ethnographic participant observation of British, Canadian, EU and Swedish diplomats’ engagement with Pride events and LGBTQ+ advocacy in South Africa, Taiwan, China, Cuba, Russia and India. The article demonstrates the influence of individual diplomats in shaping and enacting LGBTQ+ rights support, but that the reliance on individual agency also makes such commitments precarious and subject to change. We argue for consistent leadership and material support in order that ‘Rainbow Diplomacy’ be more than a symbolic and transient engagement at Pride

Keywordsplomacy, Foreign Policy Analysis, human rights, LGBT Rights, LGBT Pride, Feminist Foreign Policy
JournalInternational Affairs
ISSN0020-5850
1468-2346
Year2025
PublisherOxford University Press (OUP)
Accepted author manuscript
File Access Level
Open (open metadata and files)
ProjectThe Global Politics of Pride: LGBTQ+ Activism, Assimilation and Resistance
FunderLeverhulme Trust

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