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Call for Participants: LGBTQ+ Studies at Risk

23 November 2022

This two-day conference aims to connect queer researchers from different disciplines across the humanities and social sciences to share expertise and encourage much-needed interregional dialogue. Deadline to respond: December 23rd 2022

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LGBTQ+ researchers face increasing challenges in carrying out their work due to global democratic backsliding and shrinking space for civil society. LGBTQ+ scholars studying authoritarian or hostile regimes often focus on their own locality and rarely get a chance to connect with scholars from other regions, despite facing similar struggles, risks, and ethical questions.

This two-day conference aims to connect queer researchers from different disciplines across the humanities and social sciences to share expertise and encourage much-needed interregional dialogue. The conference is designed to assist early-career researchers and PhD students in creating a network of LGBTQ+ researchers working in hostile or authoritarian localities. It will feature panel discussions, keynote lectures from academic and non-academic experts, closed knowledge exchange sessions for researchers, and seminars teaching applicable skills to address the unique needs of LGBTQ+ researchers.

Workshops will include:

  • The ethical challenges posed when obtaining informed consent in an authoritarian environment
  • Participatory action research and researcher safety: what do we owe our participants?
  • Digital safety workshop: Mitigating the impact of state-level hacking attempts
  • Vicarious trauma: Recognizing and managing it
  • Coping with arrest and confinement
  • When activism and the academy collide: A space for activist researchers to share their experiences and the challenges they face

We are seeking proposals for panels and roundtables related to:

  • Risk management and ethics in the field
  • Digital ethnography
  • Archival research
  • Relationships between research and activism
  • Other related topics

Chosen participants and contributors will be invited to a hybrid two-day conference 23-24 March 2023 at the UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies. 

Please fill in the google form by December 23rd 2022 stating your desire to participate and/or present. We aim to send out responses by January 11th 2023.

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We encourage applications from those whose voices are often underrepresented in academia, including trans, non-binary, disabled, and Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic candidates. We especially encourage candidates from under-studied and underrepresented regions of LGBTQ+ studies to apply.

This conference is supported by the IAS Octagon Small Grants Fund