QUEST · Archiving Otherwise: Queer Memory and Resistance in Turkey’s Digital Margins

Digital media have become central to how marginalized communities document resistance and preserve collective memory. In Turkey, where LGBTI+ organizing is constrained, digital archiving has emerged as a vital strategy against erasure and censorship. Scholarship on queer digital archives largely focuses on existing and institutional archives in the Global North, with limited attention to emerging participatory practices under oppression. This project addresses that gap by co-creating two queer digital archives, collaborating with grassroots LGBTI+ communities in Turkey. Through ethnographic fieldwork, in-depth and oral history interviews, and participatory methods, it examines how queer digital infrastructures are built and sustained as practices of memory and resistance, focusing on how queer digital archiving practices challenge state-sanctioned erasure and generate alternative forms of memory for LGBTI+ communities in Turkey. The project advances queer and trans and memory studies, expanding the scope of archival research beyond institutional and Euro-American contexts, and reframing archiving as a community-based processual practice. It produces accessible public outputs, including the podcast “Voicing Archives,” that serve for collaborative counter-storytelling, collective reflection, and preservation of marginalized knowledges. Results will be disseminated through peer-reviewed publications, open-access resources, international conferences, and public events in Turkey and Europe. At the University of York, the ER will receive advanced training in digital ethnography, ethics, archiving, academic writing, and grant writing, consolidating her trajectory toward becoming an internationally recognized scholar. The fellowship will expand her transnational networks, enhance her pedagogical portfolio, and provide transferable skills with value for academia, cultural institutions, and LGBTI+ organizations, ensuring long-term scholarly, societal, and professional impact.