Dana Collins 
The Rise and Fall of an Urban Sexual Community 
Malate (Dis)placed

This book examines how gay place-making challenged the juggernaut of neoliberal urbanization in the Malate district of Manila. In this ethnography, Collins explores the creation of place, characterized by neighborhood renewal, gay community and entrepreneurialism, and informal gay sexual labor. Malate teaches us that the power of sexual community to sustain a transgressive, inclusive, gay neighborhood is circumscribed and fleeting, and that urban livability, justice, and freedom must be pursued through organized grassroots political projects if the magic of Malate is to be revived for all its residents.

Table of Content

1. Why Place Matters: An Introduction.- 2. The History of Place: From Urban Community to Heritage Conservation.- 3. The Magic of Place: Players in the Nakpil Revival.- 4. The Sexuality of Place: Gay Hospitality and the Production of Desiring Labor.- 5 “Love, Autonomy, and Our Attempts at It”: Coming of Age in Malate.- 6. The Exclusions of Place: Gay-led Gentrification within Nakpil’s Second Wave.- 7. Conclusion: Malate 2013.   

About the author

Dana Collins is Associate Professor of Sociology at California State University, Fullerton, USA. She is co-editor of
New Directions in Feminism and Human Rights, and she has published widely on her research in Manila. Her future research lies in the areas of “crisis” studies and food justice in the Philippines.