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- Convenors:
-
Tone Hellesund
(University of Bergen)
Íris Ellenberger (University of Iceland)
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- Chair:
-
Íris Ellenberger
(University of Iceland)
- Format:
- Panel
- Stream:
- INTERSECTIONALITIES
- Location:
- Room H-202
- Sessions:
- Tuesday 14 June, -
Time zone: Europe/London
Short Abstract:
The panel invites explorations of queerness and queer lives in past and contemporary cultures.
Long Abstract:
The ordinary lives of people transgressing norms of genders and sexuality have yet to be extensively explored in Nordic ethnology and folklore studies. We know far too little of the practices around same sex sexualities and gender-transgressions, and we know far too little about the potential cultural importance of such practices in different contexts. These different contexts might be defined by for example time, place, gender, class, and ethnicity.
Currently many archival institutions and museums are eager to mend the historical exclusion of queer history. But which empirical studies do we have, and which sources can offer us knowledge? What do we know about queer lives in the rural districts as well as in the cities, of queer domesticity and intimacy as well as of queer activism, about the mundane and everyday as well as about scandals and court cases? What can queer history tell us about the changing dynamics of societal norms and expectations, change and stability, processes of exclusion as well as of inclusion through the ages?
The panel welcome all projects working on queer history and queer lives in the Nordic countries. What can traditional material such as folk tales, annals and chronicles tell us? What methods and sources are used in studies of contemporary queer lives and cultural conceptions? The panel will bring together scholars studying archival sources with people doing contemporary fieldwork to discern themes and manifestations that repeat themselves through the years or discover if and how reorientations take place.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Tuesday 14 June, 2022, -Paper short abstract:
How are people experiencing places and objects differently depending on identity, norms and belonging? This paper discusses, through LGBTQI people´s experiences of places and objects in Helsinki, Finland, the capacity of places and objects to reproduce feelings of belonging and non-belonging.
Paper long abstract:
How are people experiencing places and objects differently depending on identity and belonging? What kind of feelings are attached to places and objects and how have these a capacity to affect people? These questions are entrances to my phd thesis.
I am with queer phenomenology (see Ahmed 2006), intersectional and posthumanist perspectives (see Barad 2007) examining LGBTQI people´s experiences of places and objects in the context of Helsinki, Finland. The overall aim is to produce knowledge about how places and objects are actors (see Bennett 2010) in reproducing feelings of belonging and non-belonging from a norm critical perspective. Methodologically I am re-centering the focus from a specific group/s of people to instead highlight cultural norms through people´s experiences of them. Through the experiences of LGBTQI identified people, I examine the material-disursive entanglements (Barad 2007) of places, objects and cultural norms such as heteronorms. Inquiries that raise questions of (in-)equality and democracy in relation to place, norms and identities.
I am using semi-structured and go along interviews combined with visual ethnography (Pink 2007) where I photograph places and objects with the research participants. This with the aim to through the pictures visualize the discussions around material-discursive entanglements of places, objects and norms from an intersectional perspective.
In this paper I will with examples from my own work discuss what epistemological consequences it has to think norms and cultural processes through materialities, that is, with posthumanist and new materialist perspectives.
Paper short abstract:
Drawing on Gilles Deleuze’s concepts of the fold and events this paper describes the implications of a Deleuzian theoretical approach of material pluralism in an ethnological research study on so called Gay Saunas in Sweden pre the aids epidemic.
Paper long abstract:
In Sweden, like elsewhere, the coming of the 1980s meant a drastic change from the more hedonistic life style of the 1970s. Approximately 50 per cent of those who tested positive for HIV appeared to be gay or bisexual men. It was not long before Gay Saunas were designated as the foci of infection. After a intense media debate, the Minister of Social Affairs decided that a ban on Gay Saunas should be investigated quickly. The AIDS delegation's bill was ready as early as March 1987 and on June 4 it was hammered in the Swedish parliament, and entered into force on first of July banning Gay Saunas in Sweden. The period following the arrival of aids in Sweden have been studied extensively but the importance of the gay saunas as meeting places for their patrons have been somewhat overlooked.
Drawing on French philosopher Gilles Deleuze’s concepts of the fold and events this paper describes and examines the methodological and material implications of a Deleuzian theoretical approach of material pluralism in studying the events of gay saunas pre the arrival of the aids epidemic and the enactment of ban on gay saunas in Sweden. The paper specifically draws on the view that living and non-living subjects (e.g., former patrons of the gay saunas and researcher) and objects (e.g., buildings, magazines, ads, photographs, floor plans and different types of government documents) are entangled and playing an important part in activating memories of the former patrons of the Gay Saunas.
Paper short abstract:
In 1914, the first Norwegian woman with a doctorate degree died in Larmie, Wyoming. The story of how dr. Wergeland ended up there is a story of symbolic homelessness, the lifelong search for a physical home, and the queer relationship as such a home.
Paper long abstract:
The paper will present the life journey, and the physical journeys, of dr. Wergeland, and discuss the relationships between the intimate, social and public. The main conceptual lens will be home and practices of home-making beyond the heteronormative ideal (Cook 2014, Gorman-Murray et.al. 2014, Nash 2005, Vider 2021). This perspective offers an approach to the framing of domesticity and home that opens for contextual and divergent definitions and practices. What understandings of ‘home’ emerge in this source material - as real-world shelter, as narrative metaphor linked to desires to belong, as intimacy, kinship, and romantic relationships? And how is ‘home’ defined and described as a material structure and specific location? The paper will also explore the tensions between conventionality and respectability on the one hand, and transgression and queerness on the other. The story of dr. Wergeland also raises interesting questions regarding the timelines and blurry boundaries between romantic friendships and more modern understandings of homosexuality.