Queer as an activity…refusing to rest
Queer Encounters is a network for psychosocial PhD and early career researchers in gender and sexuality to meet their peers, provide support to each other, and cross-fertilise and coordinate their research efforts. We try to meet about twice a term, and also arrange speaker events.
As Ian Parker writes, ‘queer functions at its most radical as an activity rather than as a noun…. “to queer” as an intervention, as transformational process, already transcends the opposition between noun and verb while refusing to rest’. The “queer” in the name of this network acts as both noun and verb, refusing to rest.
In an attempt to queer and decolonise the network, which sits within broader academic structures with long colonial histories, our meetings are deliberately informal, allowing space for encounters that are productive, challenging, unexpected, and transformational. Members can use this space to share research ideas and findings for informal and constructive input, experiment with innovative research methodology, discuss useful resources and papers, suggest topics that the group can think about together, and work together to find creative solutions to the inevitable frustrations of the research process.
Membership
Members are PhD students and early career researchers, and initial funding has been provided by the Department of Psychosocial and Psychoanalytic Studies at the University of Essex. Most members are currently in the UK, but we are very happy that we now have members in other parts of the world, including India, the US, and Europe – see our members’ page for more details.
Developing connections between researchers and clinicians
Some of the network members are also interested in the intersection between academic psychosocial studies and clinical practice in psychoanalysis or psychology. We plan to run topic-driven events with psychology and psychotherapy trainee networks to bring together cutting edge psychosocial research on gender and sexuality with trainees’ developing clinical experience. Over time, it is hoped that these ‘queer encounters’ will provide fertile ground for developing new, joint research projects between researchers and clinicians. If you are a clinical trainee and are interested in collaborating with us, please contact us!
Join us!
To sign up for our mailing list and be informed of upcoming Queer Encounters events, please fill in the form below: