The collaborative project ‘LGBTIQ* Movements as Agents of Democratization: Historical, Contemporary, and Future Resources for Imagining Inclusive and Diverse Democracies’ explores the role of LGBTIQ* movements in processes of democratization in Germany and Austria. It examines LGBTIQ* movements as potential catalysts in the past and present of these processes as well as the repressive tendencies within these movements. How can struggles for queer rights be understood as issues of democratization? How has LGBTIQ* activism challenged and expanded the boundaries of liberal democracies and promises of equal citizenship? What influence did repressive tendencies have on the structure of the movements and their demands? The project aims to examine more closely this tension between the exclusion of LGBTIQ* people and the fundamental democratic principle of queer rights.

A central goal is to make the gained knowledge accessible for current and future use. This will be achieved by collecting and making accessible previously neglected historical sources on LGBTIQ* movements in Germany and Austria, and by creating innovative formats for historical education such as theatre workshops and digital communication formats, the results will be communicated to the public.

We are a transdisciplinary team from academia and civil society in Berlin, Giessen and Vienna. We bring together expertise from queer archives, history, political science, theatre and dance studies, and the performing arts.

The work focusses on the intersections of research on democracy and movements, history, and feminist and queer theory. Our working methods combine approaches from art, activism, academia, and community-based archives. This creates a space for critical engagement with processes of knowledge production within academia.

The project is funded by the Volkswagen Foundation as part of the programme ‘Transformational Knowledge on Democracies under Change – Transdisciplinary Perspectives’.