Project
The Academy of Finland-funded project Where the rainbow ends: the becoming of LGBTIQ+ separations (project 349408, 2022–2025) explores a topic about which little is known: relationship breakups and problems in lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans*, intersex and queer (LGBTIQ+) people’s relationships. During the 2000s and 2010s, same-sex relationships gained increasing social acceptance and legal recognition in many Western countries. The long battle for equal rights has placed LGBTIQ+ people’s relationships under significant pressure to succeed and to be as ordinary and happy as possible. Consequently, partners in LGBTIQ+ relationships might remain silent about their problems and breakups, leading to a lack of institutional and familial support.
This project moves beyond current frameworks that focus on the similarities and differences between LGBTIQ+ and mixed-sex couples’ relationships and separations. It suggests the potential for important contextual, intersectional and generational differences within LGBTIQ+ breakups. To highlight the importance of context, the project explores LGBTIQ+ breakups in two locations: various towns in Finland and Brighton, UK. Further, it develops a queer feminist, new materialist and affect theoretical approach to breakups as assemblages, wherein various elements are conjoined, multiple power relations are in play and affective forces intensify in situational, temporally shifting ways. Often, these elements and dynamic processes are organised in gendered, sexualised, classed and racialised power dynamics, as well as in the affective dynamics that come together in relationships, leading to various challenges and ultimately to breakups.
The analysis draws on multisensory interviews with recently separated LGBTIQ+ people, interviews with experts and ethnographic observations at seminars for recently separated LGBTIQ+ people. Assemblage theory is employed to analyse the assembled relations that enable or block becoming in breakups. The project shows that the effects of an LGBTIQ+ breakup assemblage are determined not by the partners’ LGBTIQ+ identities, but by the specific connections they form with other bodies, relations, ideas and affects. By ensuring that the pain and relief involved in LGBTIQ+ breakups is understandable, the project can potentially enable these breakups to be more openly discussed, lived through and grieved. This information can also be used to make healthcare and family support services more inclusive of separated LGBTIQ+ people.
Lahti’s research on LGBTIQ+ breakups was previously funded by Alli Paasikiven säätiö, Koneen säätiö and the University of Eastern Finland.
Lahti’s research on LGBTIQ+ break-ups has been previously funded by Alli Paasikiven säätiö, Koneen säätiö and University of Eastern Finland.