This roundtable brings together researchers, artists, and activists who are using maps to generate and communicate knowledge about historical and contemporary spaces identified with Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Queer (LGBTQ+) individuals and communities.

‘Queer’ and ‘mapping’ are two words that can be read as antithetical, with the former aiming to trouble relations and the latter to render things static in place and time.

Maps can be empowering tools, helping to record global and local LGBTQI+ histories and heritage, and make marginalised communities visible. But maps are also the apparatus of colonialism and often conceal power dynamics. They necessitate attention to who or what is mapped or unmapped, which stories come to the fore and which recede.

This roundtable asks: How are maps being used to generate knowledge about queer histories and spaces in different contexts?

Is it possible to queer the map? What are the practices that might allow this to happen?

There will be short presentations from invited speakers followed by discussion and Q&A.