We Take Pride in You

Introducing the conceptual and analytical framework of tidal politics, this article argues that the historical, material, and performative qualities of water play a key role in analyzing contested ideas of belonging, progress, and pride. Drawing on Amsterdam Pride's yearly Canal Parade, the only Pride celebration of this scale to entirely take place on the water, this article shows that, while the canals are deemed a neutral and apolitical site by organizers, they are directly bound up with Dutch colonial history and are celebrated as a site of architectural Western civilization and progress. The article examines how organizing Amsterdam Pride as a celebration, as opposed to a site of protest, feeds into the making of progress myths situating Pride as a national site of sexual freedom and a safe haven for queer migrants and refugees. Offering an analysis of how the canals and water contour the workings of homonationalism and homonostalgia, this article broadens how we think through the politics of belonging in the Dutch context.