By Alyssa Brown
During our last semester as MSLIS students, Chanelle Davis and I created the Queer BIPOC Placemaking Oral History Project, where we conducted and transcribed oral history interviews by queer people of color about their experiences with “placemaking” on campus. The term “queer BIPOC placemaking” is inspired by a handful of theories, including Black placemaking, queer theory, and “quare” theory, which together address the challenges that queer Black people face in finding community. We heard from narrators—and know from our own experiences—that due to their intersectional identities, queer BIPOC people often need to forge their own affirming communities in the absence of spaces that fully cater to their identities. Aside from our own personal interests in the topic, Chanelle and I noticed in the Voices of Illinois collection a lack of stories documented by queer narrators (and therefore queer BIPOC narrators) and hoped to begin filling the gap.
The most difficult aspect of the project for me was finding narrators. I was comfortable researching our topic, conducting interviews, and transcribing them, but doing outreach to find narrators was much more daunting. My idea of emailing student and local organizations was not as prolific as I had hoped. Luckily, Chanelle was very proactive and willing to go in-person to locate potential narrators. We met our initial goal of four narrators thanks to her work. As you can find in their interviews, each narrator had incredible stories to share about their lives and their impacts on their communities. They host events, serve on the boards of local queer organizations, and make space and advocate for their peers. They also shared some of the difficult aspects of their journeys.
In sharing their stories through oral history interviews, narrators offer a piece of themselves to us. They exert emotional energy and publicly share things that are personal to them with nothing in return. That’s why reciprocity was on our minds throughout the project. Monetary compensation was not an option, and isn’t often offered in oral history projects, but there are other ways of extending appreciation to narrators. This can include attending events that the narrators host or baking them sweet treats to show thanks. Most importantly, though, to reciprocate for the trust the narrators have in us to share their stories, we found it important to hold their stories with care and do with them what the narrators wish in terms of edits and restrictions. This can lead to hours of tedium on our end, but it is worth it to meet the needs of narrators and to ethically steward their stories.
Please give the interviews a listen and/or read their corresponding transcripts on the Voices of Illinois website. We hope for the project to grow and to capture stories from a wide range of identities. If you’re interested in contributing to the project, please contact Ellen Swain at eswain@illinois.edu.
