European queer memorials

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The main aim of my study is to investigate the unique, European character of queer memorials understood as “(…) heritage sites that honor gender and sexual minorities, [which] represent communities that have often been excised in dominant public narratives” (Orangias et al. 2018: 705–706) that are located in 20 European cities. European queer memorials started to be incorporated into the public spaces of Western European cities in the 1980s and play an important role in memorizing LGBTQIA+ citizens. The project is based on the findings from an ethnographic research project “European queer memorials: from Homomonument to the HBTQ+ monument in Göteborg” funded by Adlerbertska Foundation (2023). Methodologically, it is a multiple case study (Yin 2018) where several qualitative research methods such as a) mapping of existing queer memorials in Europe, b) ethnographic observations on-site combined with informal interviews; c) production and analysis of visual materials (photos of selected monuments). To shed light on the nature of contemporary queer memorials in Europe intersectional approach (Crenshaw 1998, Hill Collins & Bilge 2016) will be utilized. This perspective allows sensitizing the research to the sexuality, gender, citizenship, and social class perspectives. In this case, it will be applied in the analysis of the investigated phenomena to capture the development of ideas regarding who and how is supposed to be memorized and represented in European queer memorials.

Katarzyna Wojnicka is an Associate Professor of Sociology at the Department of Sociology and Work Science at the University of Gothenburg. Her main fields of research are critical men and masculinities scholarship, migration, and social movements studies. She is one of the editors-in-chief of NORMA: International Journal for Masculinity Studies. Previously she had worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Gothenburg, the University of Leeds, and the Humboldt University of Berlin. Her work has been published, among others, in Men and Masculinities, the International Journal of Qualitative Methodology, Social Movement Studies, Qualitative Research, and the Gender, Work and Organization. Currently, she is involved in research projects on fathers’ activism in Europe, single migrant men, transnational abortion activism and European queer memorials.