QUEERING NORDIC BORDERS – NNAQH conference in Bergen
See program for the conference at the end of this article.
The conference is available via live stream: Watch the Live Stream.
Queering Nordic Borders - the second conference of NNAQH addresses the arbitrary nature of borders within the Nordic and Baltic region, and the consequences for marginalized people, e.g. queer people and indigenous people. The Sámi people have been particularly repressed by colonial practices, and by borders drawn with little consideration of the real lives of people living in the Middle and Northern parts of the Nordic Region.
At the conference were to discuss how queer archives and historians can question the Nordic colonial past. How have assimilation policies shaped queer indigenous lives? And how do we preserve, disseminate and research queer histories? The preservation, dissemination and research of Sámi queer history in particular, will be the topic of one of the sessions. Other questions discussed include how queer history and queer archival practices can “queer” and transgress national borders within the region.
Program
Friday April 19th
Location: Skeivt arkiv, The Norwegian Queer Archive, Sydnesplassen 7.
18.00-21.00: Pre-conference reception with pizza / drinks and tour of The Norwegian Queer Archive.
Saturday April 20th
Location: Nygårdsgaten 5 (NG5), which is the building of the administration of the University of Bergen.
Streaming link: Will be published on the conference page and sent to all the participants.
08.30-09.00: Registration and coffee.
09.00-09.15: Welcome & opening of the conference. Line Førre Grønstad, Trude Færevaag and Pia Laskar.
09.15-09.50: Opening lecture by Jens Rydström: A Life in the Archives
Jens Rydström shares memories and reflections about archival research in Nordic archives over the past thirty years.
09.50-11.10: Queer archiving and queer history in Norway
Chair: Line Førre Grønstad.
09.50-10.05: Line Førre Grønstad: The history of The Norwegian Queer Archive (Skeivt arkiv).
10.05-10.20: Runar Jordåen: A short introduction to queer archives in Norway
10.20-10.35: Silje Gaupseth: Queering Polar History – queering the Polar Museum in Tromsø.
10.35-10.55: Tone Hellesund: Queer history in Norway: Status, research projects, challenges
10.55-11.10: Discussion
11.10-11.30: Break
Coffee and light refreshments.
11.30-13.00: Queering Sámi history
Chair: Silje Gaupseth.
11.30-11.45: Sara Lindquist: Queering Sápmi – a retrospect
11.45-12.00: Elisabeth Stubberud and Dávvet Bruun-Solbakk : Queering the gákti: Weaving tradition and identity in new ways.
12.00-12.15: Torjer Olsen: Gender and queer perspectives in Sámi research: Gaps and steps forward. (Digital participation.)
12.15-12.30: Anna Linder: Queer Moving History - part 5: Imagine Native - Queer Moving Images from Sápmi. Ongoing project.
12.30-13.00: Panel Discussion
13.00-14.00: Lunch
Lunch served at the premises.
14.00-15.20: Crossing Borders: Queer history and archivism beyond the nation state in the Nordic and Baltic regions
Chair: Viktorija Kolbešnikova .
14.00-14.20: Íris Ellenberger: Queer desires in Danish-Icelandic transnational spaces in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
14.20-14.40: Riikka Tavetti (University of Turku). Finnish Queer Histories and Shifting Nordic and Baltic Borders”
14.40-15.00: Peter Edelberg: Beyond Methodological Nationalism in Scandinavian LGBT+ Activist History: Some Norwegian Examples.
15.00-15.20: Discussion: How can we as queer historians and archivists transgress the nation state in our practices?
15.20-15.40: Break
15.40-16.30: Summary and final discussion
Led by Pia Laskar.
The conference is supported by NIKK Nordic Information on Gender, Stiftelsen Fritt Ord and Meltzerfondet.
About the speakers:
Dávvet Bruun-Solbakk is journalist and activist, and has for å long time been involved in the organizations Noereh and Garmeres. Bruun-Solbakk has organized Sápmi Prides in both Guovdageaidnu/Kautokeino and Tråante/Trondheim, and in the past years partnered with festivals and art institutions for multiple projects. They also produce the podcast Sameting, together with teacher and stand-up comedian Isalill Kolpus.
Peter Edelberg is teaching associate professor, PhD, at the Saxo Institute at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark. He has published books and articles in the fields of history of sexuality, gender studies, historical theory and historiography. His publications include the book Storbyen Trækker: Homoseksualitet, prostitution og pornografi i Danmark 1945-1976 (The City Pulls: Homosexuality, Prostitution and Pornography in Denmark 1945-1976) (Cph.: Djøf’s Forlag 2012).
Íris Ellenberger is a historian and an associate professor in social studies at the School of Education, University of Iceland. Her research interests are in the fields of migration, queer and gender history and queer pedagogy. Recent research topics include queer genders and sexualities in 18th and 19th century Iceland, homonationalism and the construction of the Icelandic gay paradise, and the responsibilization of the good gay citizen in the Icelandic media during the 1990s and 2000s.
Silje Gaupseth is Director of the Polar Museum and Associate Professor in cultural sciences at UiT - The Arctic University, in Tromsø, Norway. Together with Marit Anne Hauan, she researched and curated the Queering Polar History exhibition which opened at the museum in 2022. Her research interests include travel and exploration literature, polar museum materialities, queer curatorial methods and queer history. She is a member of the QUEERDOM project.
Line Førre Grønstad is academic director at the Norwegian Queer Archive at the University Library in Bergen. She has a PhD in Cultural studies from the University of Bergen (2020) with a thesis on last name choices by Norwegian men in heterosexual relationships.
Tone Hellesund is professor of Cultural Studies at the University of Bergen and project leader for QUEERDOM. In her doctoral thesis, Hellesund writes about spinsters and how they can be seen as a queer figure. She has also written about romantic friendships, the women's movement and the lesbian movement in the 1970s and 1980s, gay suicide stories and contemporary life outside conventional families. It was also Hellesund who took the initiative and founded The Norwegian Queer Archive.
Runar Jordåen is historian and senior academic librarian at the Norwegian Queer Archive at University Library in Bergen. He has a PhD from the University of Bergen (2010) and wrote his thesis on psychiatry and homosexuality in Norway from the end of the 1800s to 1960. He has published several articles on queer history.
Viktorija Kolbešnikova, from Kaunas, Lithuania is a graduate in European Women's and Gender History. Viktorija co-curates Lithuanian queer archive "Išgirsti" as a cultural and social space where memory becomes a platform for communication. She also co-runs queer festival "Kreivės" in Vilnius, Lithuania. The festival recently celebrated its 10th edition.
Anna Linder, born 1967 in Lapland, Sweden. Linder has worked in the field of moving images as an independent artist, curator and producer since early 1990s. Now based in Gothenburg, Sweden. Linder worked at Filmform – The Art Film and Video Archive in Stockholm as a producer and curator (2004-2012) and continued with the artistic research project Queer Moving Images (2013-2017) at HDK-Valand in Gothenburg. Linder founded SAQMI - The Swedish Archive for Queer Moving Images 2017.
Sara Lindquist, a photographer exploring collective processes and marginalized narratives, celebrates the queer gaze in projects like 'Myths and Realities - a Lesbian Odyssey' and 'Queering Sápmi.' Currently collaborating on moving images with director Tove Pils (Labor 2023), investigating shadow emotions.
Torjer Andreas Olsen is professor of Indigenous studies at the Center for Sámi Studies at UiT The Arctic University of Norway, in Romsa/ Tromsø, Norway. He has a doctorate in religious studies from 2008 and wrote his thesis on Laestadianism and gender. Olsen's research interests include gender and power in Sámi contexts, Sámi themes in school and kindergarten as well as methodology and theory in Indigenous research.
Jens Rydström is professor emeritus, Lund University. Rydström has published several books and articles about queer history, including Sinners and Citizens: Bestiality and Homosexuality in Sweden, 1880–1950 (University of Chicago Press, 2003) and Odd Couples: A History of Gay Marriage in Scandinavia (University of Amsterdam Press, 2011). He has also co-edited Criminally Queer: Homosexuality and Criminal Law in Scandinavia 1842–1999 (with Kati Mustola, Aksant Academic Publishers, 2007).
Elisabeth Stubberud, is associate professor at the Centre for gender research at the Department of interdisciplinary studies of culture, NTNU in Tråante/Trondheim. She has been the leader of the queer Sámi organisation Garmeres, has organized several Sápmi Prides, and works both as a researcher and an activist. Her work includes conditions for belonging and identity, as well as intersectional perspectives on processes of marginalization.
Riikka Taavetti, PhD, is docent and university lecturer in gender studies at the University of Turku. Her research addresses queer history, history of sexuality and queer memory in Finland, Estonia and Sweden. She works currently in the research project Cruising the Baltic Sea: Nation, Gender and Sexuality in pleasure-based ferry traffic between Finland, Åland and Sweden (PI: Katarina Mattsson, Södertörn University, funded by The Foundation for Baltic and East European Studies).
