Tensional resonance: Queerness as praxis in grassroots queer spaces

Research on queer urban life has richly captured the construction, claiming, and contestation of diverse queer identities and boundaries of belonging within queer spaces. Yet, it has often overlooked the practice of queerness beyond identity. This article shifts the empirical and analytical focus from identity narratives to queerness as praxis: a collective commitment to shared values, purpose, and action in pursuit of more inclusive and expansive political communities. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in grassroots queer spaces and communities in Helsinki, the article demonstrates how queerness is both enacted and experienced through practices that resist categorical boundaries, instead fostering a reflexive and relational mode of engagement and experimentation. The article introduces the concept of tensional resonance as a key feature of queer praxis, capturing the generative friction that arises not despite but because of the tensions and messiness inherent in translating ideals into action. In doing so, it argues for framing tension not as a failure to overcome but as a productive force that can shape how communities hold together and imagine otherwise. The article contributes to broader sociological debates on how marginalized communities negotiate solidarity, community, and collective action in increasingly hostile sociopolitical climates.