Queering Research at UTS Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences

Join us for this panel presentation and discussion on how researchers at the UTS Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences are advancing social justice through research into queer communities and "queering" research by exploring and challenging gender and sex-based binaries.

Panel Chair: Kat Frolov

Bio: Kat Frolov (she/her) is the LGBTQIA+ Project Officer at UTS Centre for Social Justice and Inclusion. She advocates and supports staff and students who reflect every letter of the LGBTQIA+ Acronym at UTS. Kat is a former musician and classical singer (BMus Hons) who has a long history with the social sciences through years of advocacy work. Kat is currently completing a Master of Public health (research) and is passionate about amplifying the voices of LGBTQIA+ researchers.

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Panelist: Dr Siobhan Irving 

Title: Empowering LGBTQ+ Muslim Voices: Building Bridges for Inclusion and Support 

Abstract: There is a significant gap in culturally and religiously safe support services for LGBTQ+ Muslims. Service providers often lack the specific knowledge and understanding needed to effectively address the unique intersectional challenges faced by LGBTQ+ Muslims in a culturally safe manner. LGBTQ+ Muslims also often experience a profound sense of isolation. Pervasive Islamophobia can make mainstream Australian queer spaces and support services feel inaccessible while experiences of homophobia can make religious spaces feel unwelcoming.  The tension between some Muslim and LGBTQ+ identities can lead to severe mental health issues, including depression, anxiety, and substance abuse. As such, improving the quality of mental health and social support services is an urgent priority for improving the overall welfare of LGBTQ+ Muslims. This presentation draws upon current research funded by a UTS Social Impact Grant to address the issue of culturally unsafe support services and how they can be improved. 

Bio:  

Dr Siobhan Irving (she/her) is a Lecturer in the School of Communications and co-founding executive committee member of Sydney Queer Muslims, where she serves as the non-profit group’s treasurer and academic advisor.  Her research interests focus on health communication and perceptions of sexuality and sexual healthcare within Muslim communities in both Singapore and Sydney, Australia.  Siobhan uses both her lived experience and research background as an anthropologist to assist in developing outreach programs and activities at Sydney Queer Muslims to help the group better support LGBTQ+ Muslims.

 

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Panelist: Dr Caitlin Biddolph 

Title: Recipients, Activists, Experts: Discourses of Queer Inclusion and Ownership in Transitional Justice 

Abstract: Transitional justice (TJ) processes are increasingly recognising queer people as victims, including as targets of anti-queer violence. While queer activists have participated in, contributed to, and created their own TJ processes at the vernacular or local level, global institutions like the United Nations have only recently recognised queer people as victims within their TJ policies, and that they ought to be addressed and included in TJ processes. In this paper, I explore discourses of queer inclusion and ownership in TJ across global and vernacular knowledge practices. I undertake a discourse analysis of TJ artefacts to identify how queer people are positioned and represented as variously recipients, activists, and experts of TJ. Drawing on empirical examples such as the testimonies of queer activists at the United Nations Security Council and CEDAW, the performance-based activism of Chilean queer feminists, and the Final Report on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Girls in Canada, I argue that queer people are discursively situated (and situate themselves) as agents of TJ. However, particularly in institutional discourses, queer people are mostly represented as (passive) recipients of TJ. This contrasts with the reclaiming of ownership evident in vernacular sites of TJ. I conclude that how queer people are included and represented in TJ processes matters for the meaningful queering of TJ. Efforts at making TJ queer(er) must centre the needs and activism of queer people affected by violence, even if that means rejecting the possibility of formal TJ ever being meaningful spaces for queer recognition and agency. 

Bio: Dr Caitlin Biddolph (she/her) is a Lecturer in International Relations in the School of International Studies and Education at the University of Technology, Sydney (UTS), Australia. She was previously a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Gender and Global Governance in the School of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Sydney, Australia. Caitlin is currently researching the global governance of transitional justice through queer decolonial perspectives.  Her first monograph, titled Queering Governance and International Law: The Case of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, is under contract with Oxford University Press in their Gender and International Relations Series. Caitlin has recently published articles in European Journal of Politics and Gender, International Journal of Transitional Justice, International Studies Quarterly, and International Feminist Journal of Politics, the latter of which won the 2022 Enloe Award for best article submitted to the journal by an early-career researcher. 

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Panelist: Dr Natalie Krikowa 

Title: Supporting Queer Voices: Inside the “+ Screen Stories” Mentorship Program  

This presentation will introduce the “+ Screen Stories” mentorship program, a collaboration with Screen Canberra, funded by the ACT Government’s Capital of Equality Grants Program. The program supports LGBTQ+ screen practitioners through monthly mentor meetings and peer group sessions from November 2024 to June 2025. The presentation will explore the program's structure and the queer mentorship methodology.  

Bio: Dr. Natalie Krikowa (she/they) is a media scholar and practice-led researcher. Natalie holds a Doctor of Creative Arts in media and cultural studies and currently teaches in digital media and screen storytelling. Natalie’s recent creative research projects include Queer Representation Matters 2023, and interactive online documentary exploring queer representation in screen media in Australia and overseas.

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Organiser: Dr Jess Gikins

Bio: Dr Jess Gifkins is Senior Lecturer in International Relations at UTS. She is interested in how international relations are enacted on a day-to-day basis. Her research centers around two different themes. Her first theme is on decision-making within the United Nations, focused on the UN Security Council and the UN Secretariat. Within this strand she has published research on legitimation practices, penholding, agenda setting, peacekeeping, the relationship with the International Criminal Court, and early warning mechanisms. Her second theme is on the implementation of the ‘responsibility to protect’ (or ‘R2P’, as it is known) where she has researched language, case studies on conflicts in Darfur, Libya, and Syria, and the relationship between persecution of LGBTQI+ people, hate crimes, and atrocity crimes.

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This event is part of the UTS FASStival 2024 program.