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UBC Theses and Dissertations

Queerkadeh, an alternative community-based archives on Instagram : an autoethnographic case study leveraging Queer/ed Archival Methodology Ahmadbeigi, Sadaf

Abstract

Through this work I examine the potential of queer/ed archival methodology, also known as Q/M, developed by Jamie A. Lee, in creating intersectional and dynamic archival spaces. I attempt this inquiry by examining the decisions that led to developing and maintaining a digital archival space for storytelling on Instagram in Farsi, @queerkadeh, for queer people of Iranian and Afghan descent, as well as anyone who has access to Farsi and self identifies as queer. As a co-creator of @queerkadeh, I have closely examined the decisions that gave life to @queerkadeh, as well as the rationale behind them. I have analyzed these decisions and my processes of sense-making through the framework of the Q/M. Thinking through the seven areas of focus outlined in the Q/M framework, as well as engaging with critical archival theory, I shine a light on the process of creating a digital archival space on Instagram that is grounded in theory and examine the flexibility of the queer/ed archival methodology approach and its potential contribution to creating spaces that serve and represent diverse intersectional communities. In this thesis, I demonstrate the flexibility of the Q/M approach and the opportunities that Instagram provide for an intersectional community such as mine whose very existence is constantly questioned, ignored, and overlooked. It is my hope that by continuing this line of questioning, archival scholars and practitioners can continue imagining alternative archival spaces that are “attentive to bodies in motion, archival and otherwise, and nomadic subjectivities—those meandering ways of knowing and being.”1

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Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International