Challenges Faced in the Making of This Exhibit
We want to utilize this space on our site to acknowledge some of the challenges and limitations we faced while creating our individual exhibits and “Queer At HSU” as a whole. Our identities as students, researchers, and individuals, and our collective identity as a class, in some ways limited the ways in which we were able to completely and accurately represent our findings.
Upon embarking on this project, many of us had grand ideas and intricate endeavors planned. Considering the limited days in a semester, our lack of time was the most common struggle, and many of those grand and intricate plans became impossible to complete.
There were more personal struggles we faced as well, including familiarity with and comprehension of course content (and its implications within and beyond the classroom), motivation and commitment to the project, our differing social positionalities, lived experiences, and relationship to academic and activist work.
The following points are some of the political and social limitations/challenges we faced, which became some of the most important struggles, truly redirecting and transforming our ideas for the site:
- Defining “queer”
- Limitations of the term “queer” and its unique relationship to all individuals
- Invisibility of queerness in HSU historical archives
- Intersectionality and social positionality of some class contributors; power and privilege limiting our mindfulness and experiences
- Desired cohesiveness, collaboration, and community effort (in terms of formatting, structure, writing style, etc.)
- Limiting technological awareness and experience