Detecting deviance: Exploring a controversy surrounding a rainbow crossing through a Deleuzo-Guattarian lens

Abstract

This article explores how landscapes and their traits evoke a certain kind of world and how it then provides people a warrant to rectify or remove any trait that they detect as deviant or undesirable. This process is exemplified by an event that took place in Turku, Finland, in 2021. It elaborates a rarely utilized landscape theory drawn from the works of Deleuze and Guattari to address a controversy surrounding a landscape trait, a rainbow crossing, that was removed shortly after its implementation. The findings highlight how landscapes are highly effective in detecting supposed social deviance and in providing a warrant to correct any supposed abnormalities to maintain normality. The implementation encapsulated the social changes related to sexuality that occurred in Finland at the turn of the millennium, whereas the removal can be understood as typifying conservative sentiments and, more specifically, the political backlash against these changes that took place in the following decades. The heteronormative social order was quickly reinstated as the rainbow crossing was able to visibly challenge the dominance of the Oedipalized form of sexuality.