Niharika Banerjea

This article introduces the possibilities of transnational feminist queer research as seeking to conceptualise the transnational as a methodology composed of a series of flows that can augment feminist and queer research. Transnational feminist queer methodologies can contest long-standing configurations of power between researcher and researched, subject and object, academics and activists across places, typically those which are embedded in the hierarchies of the Global North/Global South. Beginning with charting our roots in, and routes through, the diverse arenas of transnational, feminist, participatory and queer methodologies, the article uses a transcribed and edited conversation between members of the Liveable Lives research team in Kolkata and Brighton, to start an exploration of transnational feminist queer methodologies. Understanding the difficult, yet constructive moments of collaborative work and dialogue, we argue for engagements with the multiplicities of ‘many-many’ lives that recognise local specificities, and the complexities of lives within transnational research, avoiding creating a currency of comparison between places. We seek to work toward methodologies that take seriously the politics of place, namely by creating research that answers the same question in different places, using methods that are created in context and may not be ‘comparable’. Using a dialogue across the boundaries of activism/academia, as well as across geographical locations, the article contends that there are potentials, as well as challenges, in thinking ourselves through transnational research praxis. This seeks complexities and spatial nuances within as well as between places.

This article reflects on the notion of community through a collaborative ethnographic study with women loving women in Kolkata. Performing critical urban ethnographies in the global south and writing about sexualities that defy easy spatial categorizations are vital for those who seek to extend the scholarship of sexualities beyond the ‘gayborhood paradigm’ in the global north. This article focuses on how women loving women understand community and activism in Kolkata, a city that exists within tireless attempts at economic rejuvenation and vibrant modes of living. The question of community is moot in political activism around decriminalization of same-sex relationships and social legitimacy of the same. Drawing on collaborative ethnographic work with Sappho for Equality, an activist collective working with sexually marginalized women in eastern India, we engage with community as a space through which women loving women articulate marginalization and strategically connect with normative social institutions. I begin my discussion by introducing the notion of critical collaborative ethnography as a way to practice accountability in social research. Following that through select ethnographic vignettes, I demonstrate how a ‘queer community’ is not a predetermined end but is always in the making: a process that forms and dissipates within specific material contexts, activist practices, and social encounters.Este artículo reflexiona sobre la noción de comunidad a través de un estudio de etnografía colaborativa con mujeres que aman a mujeres en Kolkata. Desarrollar etnografías urbanas críticas en el Sur Global y escribir sobre sexualidades que desafían a las categorizaciones espaciales fáciles es vital para quienes buscan extender los conocimientos de las sexualidades más allá del “paradigma del barrio gay” en el Norte Global. Este artículo se centra en cómo las mujeres que aman a mujeres comprenden la comunidad y el activismo en Kolkata, una ciudad que existe dentro de incansables intentos por un rejuvenecimiento económico y modos vibrantes de vivir. La cuestión de la comunidad es discutible en el activismo político alrededor de la discriminación de las relaciones y la legitimidad social entre personas del mismo sexo. Basándose en trabajo etnográfico colaborativo con Sappho for Equality, un colectivo activista que trabaja con las mujeres sexualmente marginalizadas del este de India, nos tratamos a la comunidad como un espacio a través del cual las mujeres que aman a mujeres articulan la marginación y se conectan estratégicamente con instituciones sociales normativas. Comienzo mi discusión presentando la noción de etnografía colaborativa crítica como una forma de ejercer la responsabilidad en la investigación social. Luego, a través de viñetas etnográficas seleccionadas, demuestro cómo una “comunidad queer” no es un fin predeterminado sino que es siempre algo en construcción; un proceso que se forma y disipa dentro de contextos materiales específicos, prácticas de activismo y encuentros sociales.本文透过与加尔各答的女同性恋者一同进行协力民族志研究，反思“社群”的概念。在全球南方从事批判城市民族志，并书写拒绝简单空间分类的性，对于寻求延伸性慾的学术研究、使之超越全球北方“男同志村典范”的研究者而言十分重要。本文聚焦加尔各答的女同性恋者理解社群与行动主义的方式，该城市存在于不断尝试经济復甦和生气蓬勃的生存模式之中。有关社群的问题，在对同性恋关係除罪化和取得该关係社会正当性的政治行动中，仍然悬而未决。我们运用与“莎芙女同志平权论坛” 之协力民族志研究，该论坛係为一项与东印度在性方面受到边缘化的女性的行动式集体合作，以此涉入社群作为女同性恋者接合边缘化并策略性地连结规范性社会机构的空间。我将引介批判协力民族志之概念，作为实践社会研究的可究责性之方法，以此展开讨论。我将接着透过选择民族志的短文，展现“酷儿社群”何以不是预先决定的目标、而总是处于打造的过程——一个在特定物质脉络、行动实践和社会偶遇中形构和消解的过程。

Participatory strategies have generated a critical body of work examining the meaning of empowerment and urban policy-making in societies undergoing a shift from government to governance. Discussions on the institutionalized limits of participatory policies and genealogies of participatory discourses have often shed inadequate light on the perspective of the economically marginalized. My study draws from ethnographic fieldwork in an urban

... DOI: 10.1080/09584935.2011.569701 Niharika Banerjea a ... Consider the following excerpt from Radha, a community health volunteer's speech published in the Hope literature: I am an illiterate person now providing health information and services to 50 families in my community ...