Birgit Hofstätter & Anita Thaler
Birgit and Anita met each other in 2006 as researchers in a project at IFZ (Interdisciplinary Research Centre for Technology, Work and Culture) in Graz Austria and they never stopped working together although Birgit moved back to her place of birth at the beautiful lake Attersee. They love doing workshops, podcasts, research projects together, they teach, write, publish the Queer STS Forum together with other members of the AG Queer STS. But most importantly they are friends, they share queer-feminist values and interests in pop-culture, so you might find them on a concert together or sitting on a sofa re-watching their favorite vampire series.
In recent years numerous queer-feminist communities have been established as places of comfort and empowerment. At the same time, we have had to witness social and political setbacks when it comes to the rights of women* and LGBTIQA*. We experience and/or observe hostile environments – particularly in the online, more anonymous dimensions of society. Even in greater feminist contexts we are confronted with movements excluding vulnerable groups from their aspirations or even rallying against minorities (such as trans persons).
However, we see, hear about, and participate in queer-feminist activities of kindness, love and solidarity in so many different contexts, from bicycle clubs, upcycling and repair shops, community gardens, cold swimming societies1, book clubs, nature walks, crochet projects to fermenting experiments (see Lauren Fournier and colleagues’ “fermenting feminism”, 2017) or feminist coding collectives (acierto, alejandro t. & KT Duffy 2020). What unites them are feminist, or more specifically, queer-feminist values and the creation of spaces or activities where queer and queer-feminist people feel welcome and at home because they do not have to explain themselves but just be who they are, because they belong.
With this Forum #9, we want to show examples of how to stand up together against antifeminist, anti-LGBTIQA* movements, bashing of ‘rainbow topics’ etc., how to join forces and overcome differences, initiatives in support of each other, joint activism against hate speech and discrimination (e.g. body shaming), and collect examples of initiatives and projects aiming for more kindness, love and solidarity in times of social and political turbulences. We invited research papers and creative formats to illuminate and reflect on ideas, experiences and actions of queer-feminist solidarities. The contributions in this year’s journal tell stories and share experiences that inspire and offer potential to be applied elsewhere. We especially wanted to highlight actual initiatives, communities and projects offering a sense of belonging by cherishing and practising queer-feminist solidarity. The contributions in our Queer-Feminist Science and Technology Studies Forum #9 want to inspire our community and invite interested people to join or to copy aspects into their own realm.
We were entirely open in regard to the thematic context and focus on the importance of queer-feminist solidarities across communities and movements. The collection in this journal is by no means a representative overview but a small glimpse into queer-feminist activities in our network and beyond, trying to provide brave spaces and places of lived solidarities. Our journal itself is meant to be such a brave space and a place of lived solidarity. It is self-published, and although we, as the working group Queer STS, are very fond of it and the wonderful collaborations coming from it, it is only high ranked in our hearts, not in the cold, rigid numbers of performance indications of today’s academia. This is why we appreciate all the contributions even more, because we cannot offer much, certainly nothing in the currency of academic careers. This journal exists only through the contributions and the people behind. To us, every text, every image, every audio feels like an appreciation of this space we created, and we call ourselves lucky to be part of it.
To shortly present initiatives of lived queer-feminist solidarities we came up with a new format we called in private “queer-feminist shopping window”. The English expression of “shopping window” implies an act of consumption or financial exchange which, however, has nothing to do with these initiatives. The German word “Schaufenster”, in contrast, rather relates to the fact that you can look through a window where something is on display. Passersby can get an insight and might be drawn into learning more about it. The initiatives on display in this Forum invite to become a member or start similar activities with like-minded people at your place. It is the notion of “belonging” which comes to mind, where you do not have to explain yourself, where you feel part of a community and be seen and heard the way you are (read more: bell hooks 2009).
Feeling welcome and supported by a community is a powerful experience. When I (Birgit) moved back from the city of Graz to my rural home in the region Salzkammergut after 13 years, I quickly found out how precious being part of a community is. I missed my queer-feminist bubble. The occasion of the region Salzkammergut becoming Cultural Capital 2024 brought project funding for the women’s association I work for, and I took the chance to get funding for a queer community building project we called Salzkammerqueer (see the contribution with the same title in this journal).
I joined forces with my colleague from a women’s association in Scharnstein so we could cover quite a wide range of the region. The most important part to me was the community building process, even though we had some other highlights in the project, like the first Pride in Salzkammergut, many events, networking activities and invitations to cooperation. I was very excited that people actually came to our open community evenings which we organized alternating at different places across the region of the cultural capital.
As we started out as an initiative of two women’s associations, we at first attracted mainly individuals identifying as female or experiencing female socialization. Only after some meetings we were joined by a gay couple with more to follow. Now we are a very diverse group of people when it comes to sexuality and gender. In contrast to my community in Graz, the people coming from an academic background with scientific knowledge about gender and sexuality are the minority in this group. However, there seems to be a common understanding of how we want to interact and treat each other. I experience it as a genuine form of queer-feminist solidarity, even when other community members might not have the same words for what we feel when we come together. The support within this group is growing, now that funding expires and those who have been employed in this project will contribute their time and efforts voluntarily in the future. The project is currently turning into a community owned community where every single member makes a difference. I am very curious how Salzkammerqueer will transform – as a community as well as the region.
In the second shopping window, Annika Stitch and Dino are showing us a bike kitchen located in Graz, Austria, which is based on an internationally wide spread concept. The “Queerfeministische Fahrradküche”, however, is an inclusive community space with queer-feminist values (see their contribution about the queer-feminist bike kitchen in this journal). It is the aim of this initiative to offer queer and FLINTA* cyclists of all skill levels a brave space to learn about bike mechanics and to challenge patriarchal structures in hegemonic bicycle repair shops and organisations. This queer-feminist bike kitchen represents one example of many international communities sharing similar values and offering safe environments and a place of belonging for queer-feminists all over the world – check out your local community!
In the third virtual display our dear feminist friend and artist Reni Hofmüller shares a glimpse into the “esc medien kunst labor“, a media art lab highlighting artistic processes that examine new technologies and their effects on social developments based on queer-feminist solidarity (see more in this Forum #9).
After three Austrian initiatives we are happy to look abroad and learn from artist and activist Namkeen Peshawri about the community of Khwaja Sira, an indigenous gender diverse population in Pakistan (see this contribution in our journal). As most of the Khwaja Sira find themselves in precarious living conditions, they depend on the safer spaces and solidarity provided by their own community.
Finally, we present two longer contributions showcasing and discussing the specific contexts of queer-feminist solidarities. The first of these is a podcast by Bren Kutch and Aparna Arora from the Society of Gender Professionals (SGP) on the “SPG Breaking Gender/Sex Binaries Circle: A communities-of-practice approach to building transnational queer-feminist solidarities” (see the transcript and listen to the audio-file embedded in this journal). SGP is an international community of practice founded on feminist theory with the aim to share experiences and knowledge about the complexities of sex, gender and diversity. In the podcast the Breaking Binaries Circle is discussed with its core elements of belonging, care and co-creation to nurture queer-feminist solidarities, specifically in online communities.
In the paper “Sowing change: A women*’s garden as queer-feminist intervention in biodiversity research” my colleagues Mirjam Krause, Katharina Santer, Sandra Karner, Christina Seliger, David Steinwender, and I, Anita, write about our experiences to establish a biodiversity learning community by building a garden together with marginalized women* (read more about it in this Forum #9). While the background of this garden and its resources are rooted in an international research project, the text (and many pictures of the garden activities) represents the ethnographic approach of this specific case study also in its writing style. Using journal entries of three gardeners (Mirjam, Katharina and Christina), we follow the chronological flow of their reflections, watching the garden and the community of women* grow.
When I wrote about our article in this journal, I moderated a workshop with seven of the women* gardeners to systematize their experiences – an academic exercise to structure data in a standardized way in order to compare this biodiversity learning community with the other case studies from the research project. A key message throughout the 3-hours long workshop was that the women* feel a strong sense of belonging in this community, and I heard of three central elements which fed into this process: The first one was planning and doing the garden together as a group of women* – from building the fence, to sowing, planting, weeding, watering and harvesting. Being able to provide ecologically grown, healthy vegetables for themselves, their families and friends, was an important aspect of this first element, too. Secondly, we invited colleagues and friends to co-create biodiversity knowledge with our gardeners. Like the participating women* we were a little sceptical in the beginning whether these so-called research activities would be seen as a nuisance or be boycotted. However, we quickly found out that, by incorporating didactical measures in these workshops to make sure all women* felt welcome and their situated knowledges valued (Haraway 2016), the gardeners did not mind at all that their bodily work was complemented by discussions and reflection exercises. In our systematization workshop one of the women* told me that she was so sad to move to another city, because she knew she might find another community garden there, too, but none where they might also do these workshops and social activities. These events are our third element to create our community: social activities like exercises to support group dynamics, especially in the beginning, followed by celebrating spring, midsummer and thanksgiving, furthermore – and in general – eating, drinking, talking and laughing together.
1 We came across the Blue Tits Chill Swimmers on Instagram and have been following their social swim community online ever since: https://thebluetits.co/.
References
acierto, alejandro t. & KT Duffy (2020). CQDE: A feminist manifestx of code-ing. Chicago, IL, Nashville, TN, and Ann Arbor, MI. https://cdn.glitch.me/4245d3ac-d023-4351-bf56-9874da7ab231%2FCQDE_A_Femenist_Manifestx_Of_Code-ing.pdf
bell hooks (2009). Belonging: a culture of place. New York, New York: Routledge.
Fournier, Lauren; Zegers, Augustine; Morrigan, Clementine; Kartsaki, Eirini; Yesmin, Farida; Regel, Hannah; Meyer, Hazel; Bencke, Ida; Antonsen, Dea; Mars, Jade Io; Bebenek, Jessica; Polyck-O’Neil, Julia; Nadir, Leila; Peppermint, Cary; Forrester, Miles; Macdonald, Jen; Hey, Maya; Peet, Nicci; Green, Nicki; de Miguel, Regina; Dalt, Lucrecia; Zabiegalski, Robin; Martini, Rubina; Nash, Se; Maroney, Stephanie; Nasby, Sarah; Vandeleur-Boorer, Alice; Valentová, Tereza; Khan, Zayaan; Schneider, Zoë and The Unstitute; WhiteFeather Hunter. Fermenting Feminism. s.l.: Laboratory for Aesthetics and Ecology, 2017. https://e-artexte.ca/id/eprint/28709/
Haraway, Donna J. (2016). Staying with the trouble. Making kin in the chthulucene. Duke University Press.