Transnational Queer and Feminist Archives

We seek abstracts for the proposed collection, Transnational Queer and Feminist Archives. In our current moment, the rights and safety of LGBTQ2S+ people, women, and gender non-conforming people are undergoing radical political shifts across the globe. These shifts risk a profound loss of queer and feminist cultural memory. As academics, communities, and artists have worked to redress the suppressed queer and feminist cultural memory of the past, our current moment asks us to consider ways that queer and feminist activist archiving might develop transnational solidarities and new ways of preserving the future of cultural memory.

This collection seeks to publish work from academic and non-academic communities that demonstrate transnational strategies for preserving queer and feminist activist archives. Possible topics include but are not limited to: 

• What new or changing strategies can scholars and communities use to help preserve materials across international lines?
• What is the role of community archives in transnational solidarity for feminist and queer histories? How do the infrastructure, politics, culture, and population entailed in community archives shape local and global risks, commitments, and activism? 
• What is the role of artists, activists and communities in the recirculation or “repertoire” of cultural heritage in light of these political changes? 
• What distributed or non-institutional strategies do artists, activists and communities practice? 
• What are the possibilities or limitations of international cultural heritage organizations like UNESCO in this work? 
• What are the possibilities or limitations of digital surrogates and digital preservation in this work? How might minimal computing initiatives like GO:DH and the technological practices of the Global South provide models for preservation? 
• How should ownership or stewardship agreements with archives adapt to these circumstances? 
• How might a decolonising approach like the CARE principles for Indigenous data governance inform justice-oriented preservation across international lines? 
• How might research data management guidelines produced by funding bodies like the Canadian Tri-Council or UK Arts and Humanities Research Council and Digital Curation Centre contribute to best practices for vulnerable digital and non-digital archives?

This collection is occasioned by the increasing risks to queer cultural memory in local, national, and transnational contexts. From their own national contexts in Canada and Poland, the editors have witnessed far-right governments targeting reproductive and trans rights and the destabilization of protections around university research. The collection seeks to include accounts that think about how to collect or experiment with archives that trouble the borders of nation states, whose governance or communities undergo radical shifts within or against geopolitical trends.

Submission format: 

1. Chapters (max 5000 words, inclusive of notes). Chapter submissions should advance a clear and compelling argument, supported by evidence and relevant academic research. While specific cases may provide a background or occasion for chapters, submissions that are strictly case studies will not be considered for this submission. Collaboratively authored submissions are welcome.
   Scholars and practitioners from across disciplines and regardless of rank, position or institutional affiliation are invited to submit abstracts of 300-500 words for Chapters. 
2. Features: 500-1000 words + feature image. Feature submissions are intended as a non-academic focus to showcase artists, community groups, or archives with a focus on the goals, challenges, and solutions that these groups have experienced in preserving and creating international queer and feminist materials, additional supporting material to be housed in a GitHub repository.  Collaboratively authored submissions are welcome.
   Artists, practitioners, and community groups are invited to submit abstracts of 200 words + description of supplementary material for Features. 

• Abstracts due: Thursday April 30, 17:00 PST

• Please send abstract and 100-word bio to transnationalqueerarchives gmail com
• Please direct questions to transnationalqueerarchives gmail com
• Editors: Maria Alexopoulos (UBC Okanagan; QueerIT project), Barbara Dynda (U Warsaw; QueerIT project), and Emily Christina Murphy (UBC Okanagan)
• Press: Rutgers University Press has expressed interest in reviewing this proposed collection.