Trans Archiving Network (TAN)
- Project timeframe
- 1 October 2023 - 1 September 2025
- Theme
- Dimensions of Inequality
- Amount awarded
- £28,382
- Funder ID
- AHRC
Project leader: Dr Catherine Armstrong
While social media is spreading anti-transgender sentiments, there are also more people discovering and embodying a trans or non-binary identity, making the dissemination of accurate information and skills an important task. The innovation of the Trans Archiving Network (TAN) is that it will bring together academic and non-academic experts in the fields of trans studies, trans activism and trans archiving to share and develop knowledge on the collection of oral histories through an intersectionality lens.
To our knowledge there has to date been no explicit focus on archiving the marginalized, intersectional - people of colour, working class, ethnically diverse, (dis)abled bodied, aging, rural/urban based - lives of trans and non-binary people, which limits our knowledge and understanding of trans and non-binary communities in the UK. Through six events, held at the Nottingham Centre for Transgender Health, the network will generate ongoing (inter)national working relationships and have the following outcome:
Create the first digital archive of the trans and non-binary community in the East Midlands area. Working with our trans community project partner, Notts Trans Hub (NTH), and (inter)national experts in trans archiving, the resulting Trans Lives: East Mids project will create a narrative of trans and non-binary community participation, development, and political engagement in the region.
We envisage that the resultant archive will have two different uses:
1) an academic resource for the research team and historians and gender theorists investigating the development of trans and non-binary identities in the late 20th and 21st centuries.
2) a website resource for the members of Notts Trans Hub and trans people in the East Midlands.