Cultural Memory in LGBT Activism for Rights

Project Information

MEMORIGHTS

Grant agreement ID: 840302

DOI

10.3030/840302

Project closed

EC signature date 29 March 2019

Start date 1 September 2019

End date 31 December 2022

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions

Total cost

€ 213 816,96

EU contribution

€ 213 816,96

Coordinated by

UNIVERSITEIT UTRECHT
Netherlands

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - MEMORIGHTS (Cultural Memory in LGBT Activism for Rights)

Reporting period: 2021-09-01 to 2022-08-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

How do LGBTQ people (i.e. Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans, and Queer people) mobilize the memories of the past for civil resistance? This is the question addressed by the project MemoRights – Cultural Memory in LGBT activism for rights. Although there have been considerable gains in the last decades as regards the recognition of equal rights for LGTBQ people, such accomplishments are unevenly distributed in the EU. Indeed, a recent European Parliament motion for a resolution on LGBTIQ rights in the EU (2021/2679(RSP)) addressed the current political uncertainties and risks of setbacks in the recognition of equal rights for LGBTQ people. MemoRights aimed to contribute to these debates by providing a better understanding of how cultural memory inspires civil resistance in the case of LGBTQ activism (and beyond).

Research in memory studies has proved how crucial acknowledging the past is for informing politics and policies in the present and for constructing more inclusive and reflective societies. However, LGBTQ activism falls outside the dominant theoretical framework in the field. Memory studies have mainly focused on top-down (i.e. from the institutional actors to citizens) uses of memory in nation-building and applied a traumatic paradigm for investigating the memory of the tragic historical experience of WW1, WW2, and the Holocaust. LGBTQ struggles have been instead characterized by their transnationalism and by bottom-up practices for remembering and protesting (e.g. Pride Marches and festive modalities of protest and commemorations). Since these are at odds with the traumatic as an interpretative category for the analysis of memory and identity-making, research into the mobilization of cultural memories in LGBTQ activism is overdue.

To address this knowledge gap, MemoRights followed three complementary tracks:

1) it built on a small but growing scholarship on the memory-activism nexus memory-activism which offers an alternative to the traumatic paradigm;
2) it adopted a transnational approach and decentralized the European perspective by conducting research on LGBTQ activism in the Argentinian context, moving beyond forms of methodological nationalism;
3) it analyzed three practices: i) commemorative marches; ii) archiving process and the building and uses of archives for/of LGBTQ activism; iii) the use of memorial spaces.

The PI connected and worked with three world-class centers for the study of cultural memory and activism at Utrecht University and the University of Buenos Aires; and with the International Institute for Social History of Amsterdam, a world-leading research and heritage institute for the preservation of the cultural legacy of social movements.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

Training and desk research at Utrecht University, the University of Buenos Aires, and at the International Institute of Social History of Amsterdam allowed for elaborating a theoretical and methodological framework for the empirical analysis. The weekly research meetings with the “Remembering Activism-ReAct” group led by Ann Rigney at Utrecht University allowed the PI to build a solid theoretical framework, characterized by a fruitful interdisciplinary dialogue and in line with the most recent debates in the field.

In the 21-month research period in Buenos Aires, the PI followed nine PhD seminar series on gender studies, memory studies, archives, and social movements. The workshops organized by the Núcleo de Estudios sobre Memoria enabled the PI’s fruitful integration into the regional scientific community in the field. The possibility of working in virtual meetings with the research group in Utrecht and scholars in Buenos Aires enabled the immediate transfer of knowledge across the Atlantic, which continued onsite in the return phase in Europe.

The return phase of the project started with a secondment at the International Institute of Social History of Amsterdam, to allow the PI to gain insight into the professional field of archiving. The organization of the workshop “Archiving Activism in the Digital Age” was pivotal for producing and disseminating the results of the project beyond academia. Until December 2022, the PI followed also an intense training program, which focused on digital humanities and language skills in English and Dutch.

The PI organized two online seminar series, and three seminars, participated in two conferences, and delivered a masterclass. Overall, over 50 participants between scholars, activists, and experts from Europe and the Americas participated as speakers, discussants, or chairs in MemoRights’s dissemination activities during the three years. Finally, the project produced five research articles, a chapter in a book, a journal special issue, and a collection of essays. Some of these outputs are already available, while others will be available in 2023.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

The project addressed this general research question: how is cultural memory used as a resource in LGBT activism?, breaking it down into two research subquestions:

- What is the role of archives in the activist struggle for rights?
- How do public spaces and monuments work as social settings for LGBTQ activism?

As for the first research questions, the project bridged critical archival studies, semiotic methodologies, and memory studies. MemoRights proposed the idea of ‘instituting force’ of LGBT+ activist archiving to describe how activists produce and see archival material as a resource for their claim-making. The elaboration of the collection of essays “Archiving Activism in the Digital Age” will support activists, archivists, and scholars to think about the best strategies and socio-political importance of archiving activism.

As for the second research question, the project collected a corpus of onsite events in seven countries, analyzing memory-making in urban spaces. In particular, the PI analyzed marches, walks, and parades, exploring how cultural and communicative memory sustain LGBTQ causes for equality.

Together with the above-described research questions, the project included two propaedeutic objectives:

- to bridge semiotic and memory studies. The PI merged his background in semiotic studies with his training in memory studies, to offer conceptual and methodological perspectives to be transferred to the analytical work on LGBTQ cultural productions;

- to contribute to the dialogue between scholars in Europe and Latin America for the study of cultural memory. The PI organized two meetings between scholars of the Utrecht Forum for Memory Studies and the Núcleo de Estudios sobre Memoria of Argentina. These meetings were important not only for the exchange of theoretical and methodological perspectives to the study of memory-making in the two geographical areas but also because the PI experimented with new multilingual formats for meetings between international research groups. By using digital technologies developed during the pandemic lockdowns, the PI tried to lower the different barriers that hamper the dialogue between scholars in the memory studies field across the globe. A research article, a journal special issue, and linguistic assistance offered in different circumstances are the contributions of the project MemoRights to better connect communities of scholars and activists, and their agendas, within Europe and between Europe and Latin America.

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