QISA Families Only

QISA Families will have a lip sync/karaoke battle prior to the Welcome Queens Party!

Join QISA for a social at Le Phare!

Join QISA for a picnic by the lake at Perle du Lac! We will provide light snacks and refreshments, but please bring food/drinks if you would like anything else for lunch.

Join us for a potluck lunch to meet current and new QISA members, and enjoy a free meal!

The sign-up sheet for the potluck will be released shortly.

Come join us July 29th at 20:00 for our first Be Sexy party!

This series is all about having fun and and feeling like your best you. The theme is ABC, meaning Anything But Clothes - come in a designer ikea bag look, or maybe cardboard box chic, it’s all up to you! While the theme is encouraged, it is absolutely optional so come how you’re comfortable.

We hope to see all you sexy people there!

This encounter as Latin American researchers and activists aims to dialogue on building historical memory from feminist and queer perspectives. Thus, this roundtable discussion will reflect on ethical concerns from the economy of care with and for grassroots communities and the significance of social research in the contexts of political and social violence. We will focus on the Colombian and Brazilian cases regarding theoretical, methodological, and ethical concerns from Latin American critical viewpoints. Moreover, we want to reflect on the role of social researchers in analyzing the communities’ resistance processes and the reconstruction of the social fabric. 

Chairs - PhD researchers in ANSO- Geneva Graduate Institute

Larissa da Silva Araujo

Gina Wirz-Suárez

Panelists

 Alejandra Bello Urrego | Postdoctoral researcher, Université de Lausanne  

Political scientist. She has recently joined the Center for Gender Studies at UNIL as a postdoctoral researcher in the project "Constitutive actions of sovereignty: an intersectional analysis of the exercise of sovereign power in the new forms of war, observed in the territories of the Colombian State." She is currently interested in questioning the mechanisms of power fixation, either by its institutionalization in the State or by its epidemization in constructing governable bodies. She is particularly interested in analyzing the relationship of continuity between these two phenomena. This questioning goes beyond disciplinary boundaries by interrogating the continuity process between the logics of power manifested in state-body relations. Thus, although her work has its genesis in theory and political science, it is situated at the intersection of three transdisciplinary fields: cultural studies, gender-feminist studies, and bioethics. This questioning is approached by deploying methodological, epistemological, and conceptual tools from decolonial feminist perspectives and anti-colonial modes of thought.

 Alanis Bello | PhD Candidate in Education-USP (Brazil) ; Lecturer-NPU (Bogota) 

Sociologist and Master in Gender Studies at the National University of Colombia. PhD Candidate in Education at the Universidade de São Paulo (Brazil). She teaches at the Faculty of Education of the National Pedagogical University of Colombia and has conducted several research projects with victims of the armed conflict, women deprived of liberty, sex workers and LGBTIQ people. She specializes in feminist pedagogies and memory studies from a gender approach. Her doctoral research addresses the question of the impacts of armed violence in the daily life of schools and the strategies of care and resistance deployed by basic education teachers in these contexts. This work was conducted in the cities of Buenaventura (Colombia) and in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil). 

 Laura Flórez Castellar | PhD researcher in ANSO ; Geneva Graduate Institute

Artist and anthropologist. PhD candidate in the Department of Anthropology and Sociology at IHEID. Between 2019 and 2020, Laura supervised the research team in Buenaventura, Colombia, assessing the impacts of port expansion on the lives of indigenous and black communities, commissioned by the Interethnic Truth Commission of the Colombian Pacific (CIVP). She holds a master’s degree in Social Sciences specializing in Anthropology from the University of Neuchâtel (Switzerland). Laura is also an anti-racist activist and national representative of immigrant workers in the Swiss trade union.

More information and registration:

https://www.graduateinstitute.ch/communications/events/peace-and-truth-seeking-feminist-and-queer-perspectives-historical-memory

The Decolonial Action Network and QISA are proud to be presenting the Direct Action Dialogue & Workshop!

Please join us to discuss, share knowledge, and learn about taking action for social justice and international solidarity within the student activist community. Light snacks and drinks will be provided. Our event will also be followed by an informal apero.

QISA is proud to be presenting the film “Sparrooabbán”/“Me and My Little Sister” as a part of Indigenous Peoples’ Rights Month. Directed by Suvi West, the film explore’s the director and her sister’s journey of sisterhood, queerness, and the search for acceptance in their indigenous Sámi community.

As a part of Indigenous Peoples' Rights Month, QISA and GISA are putting together a panel that explores the intersections of being queer, 2-Spirited and Indigenous. The panel will present the following individuals: Roger Kuhn (he/him) and Brendan Campbell (they/them).

The discussion will touch on the violent impact of performative activism on marginalized communities. Panelists will comment on the discourses of decolonizing the curriculum as well as academic institutions and their role in the affirmation of these identities.

The Indigenous Peoples' Month is almost here!

Join us in the opening ceremony, which will revolve around discussing the main challenges for ensuring the rights of Indigenous Peoples around the world. Hear from different indigenous voices the main obstacles they face to ensure their protection and the enjoyment of their rights.

Date and time: Monday the 28th of February, 2022. 18:00 CET.

Place: Auditorium A2, Graduate Institute Geneva

Join the Environmental Committee and QISA for the film screening of Water Makes Us Wet: An Ecosexual Adventure (2017)!

Ecosexuality is a new movement at the intersection of culture and ecological activism founded by performance artists Annie Sprinkle and Beth Stephens which seeks to re-frame the conversation around solving environmental issues. Through their ecosexual performances, lectures, walking tours, workshops, visual art, symposia, manifesto, films and other creative projects, Sprinkle and Stephens posit a radical relationship with environmentalism that is non-hetero-normative, and non-human centered.

Beth Stephens will be joining us to talk to us about how they are trying to make environmentalism more diverse, attractive and fun. This will be accompanied by a screening of their film, Water Makes Us Wet: An Ecosexual Adventure (2017), which chronicles the pleasures and politics of water in California from an ecosexual perspective. Following the film screening there will be a moderated discussion with the filmmakers to discuss the themes and ideas that their film prompts. This event is an opportunity for IHEID to look at the Earth and our relationship with it in a new way. It is time to connect the dots: Are we exploiting the planet in the same way we do with women's bodies?

Snacks and wine provided!

COVID Certificate mandatory.

The Latin American Network Initiative (LANI) and QISA, within Gender and Diversity Month, aim to provide a Latin American perspective to these issues through the screening of one film related to these issues in one of LANI’s CINEDEBATES. Through CINEDEBATES, LANI aims to provide a safe space to discuss ongoing issues in Latin America portrayed in different films or movies from different perspectives.

Taking into consideration the topic of gender and diversity, we will be discussing the film, RETABLO. This film follows Segundo (Junior Bejar Roca), a young boy in Ayacucho in rural Peru whose father Noé (Amiel Cayo) is training him in the family tradition of designing and building religious “retablos” (cultural and artistic artisanal works), but whose secret shatters Segundo's world and everything he believes in. Segundo will go through the his own conflicting process understanding his father’s secret, which is related to the way he lives his sexuality.

The content addressed by this film is particularly rich to analyze through different perspectives such as gender, queer, intercultural, decolonization, among others. The film was originally recorded in quechua (and indigenous language and one of the official ones in Peru) and in Spanish.

The film premiered at the 2017 Festival de Cine de Lima, where it won the award for Best Peruvian Film. It had its international premiere at the 2018 Berlin International Film Festival, where it won a Teddy Award as the best LGBTQ-themed debut film of the festival. In 2019 it won the Havana Star Prize for Best Film (Fiction) at the 20th Havana Film Festival New York.

It was selected as the Peruvian entry for the Best International Feature Film at the 92nd Academy Awards, but it was not nominated.

Agenda:

Registration for Entrance**: 18:00 - 18:15

Presentation of the Movie: 18:15 - 18:20

Movie Screening: 18:20 - 20:15

Round Discussion: 20:15 - 21:00

** COVID certificate is required!! Max Capacity is 50, so only those who register will be permitted entry.

Join us for our Gaysgiving fam event, happening the 25th of November! Bring your favorite festive dish!

Tinder, Bumble, Coffee Meets Bagel, Grindr, Scruff, HER, OKCupid... We've tried some of them, we've tried all of them. Apart from the incessant search for true love(s), what haunts us during the night(s) is how all these dating experiences say about us.

TechSec X QISA present to you the first ever "Online Dating Horror Stories" where everyone comes together to share, discuss, exchange, and empathize over the wows and woes of their experiences using digital technologies in our quest of love. We bring you drinks, snacks, a fun night of laughter, and some expert opinions. TechSec, QISA, and the Feminist Collective will walk us through online security, queer cultures, and feminist perspectives over these platforms in lightheartedness and rationality.

What are you waiting for? Tell us HOW WRONG/right THINGS COULD BE for online dating!

We will circulate an anonymous survey for you to share with us your stories, if you wish, after registration.

UN-GLOBE Geneva Women’s group invites you to our Women’s Afterwork Apero. We’re teaming up with Sapphics in Geneva, QISA, Think Out! and ATLAS for this event.  Join us for a drink and opportunity to meet new people or catch up with friends.

This social event is open for all LGBTIQ+ women and welcomes all.

Health information: Following the current COVID19 rules in Geneva, the COVID Certificate will be asked upon entry. 

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UN-GLOBE Geneva Women's group vous invite au Women's Afterwork. Cet événement est organisé en collaboration avec Sapphics in Geneva, QISA, Think Out ! et ATLAS. Ce sera l'occasion de rencontrer de nouvelles personnes ou de retrouver des ami-es autour d’un verre !

 Cet événement est ouvert à toutes les femmes LGBTIQ+  et accueille toutes et tous.

Informations sanitaires : Suite aux réglementations COVID19 en vigueur à Genève, le Certificat COVID sera demandé à l'entrée

As part of QISA’s efforts to diversify and showcase different queer voices, we will be hosting a small panel with the Migration Initiative to hear from migrants on their personal experiences of being queer and juggling being a migrant. We would also like to hear from those who have fled from countries criminalising LGBT community members and sought to claim asylum. From family expectations to cultural differences, who are we amidst it all?

This event is in collaboration with the Migration Initiative and Queeramnesty.

About our Panelists from Queeramnesty: 

Reywynx Morgado ( Rey ) 

• Journalist in the Philippines

• Rural Missionaries of the Philippines

• LGBT Advocate

• Member of Kapederasyon (LGBT Organization in the Philippines)

Solomon Wanansi

• From Uganda, he is currently in Switzerland as a gay refugee and has been here for almost 2 years.

As part of QISA’s efforts to diversify and showcase different queer voices, we will be hosting a short documentary film screening and Q&A with the director and star of “Goodbye Mr B Hello Miss B!”, a film documenting the life of Beatrice Wong, a transwoman in Hong Kong. The film and the Q&A will open up discussions on how gender and queer experiences and identity are locally constructed.

Documentary Film Trigger Warnings: Blood, Explicit Nudity, references to sex, masturbation, references to body dysmorphia, medical procedures, references to self-injurious behaviour.

About Beatrice Wong:

Beatrice Wong, born 1980 in HK and based in HK ever since, is a transgender outsider artist with a lifelong struggle with mental issues, and expresses her dilemmas in life through personal creative projects and mediums including stand-up comedy, contributing to the LGBTQ anthology ‘Intimate Strangers: True Stories from Queer Asia’, short films screened at various LGBTQIA film festivals around the globe, and recently, photography with her WMA Masters finalist work ‘No Opportunities (for Beatrice)’ being exhibited in Hong Kong City Hall. Beatrice also DJ as Misty Penguin.

For Webex information, https://iheid.webex.com/iheid/j.php?MTID=mabaf44798cc5895f7e1d697e6fb7339d

Feminist and Queer theorizing have located gender, sex, and sexuality as central to the exercise of power and domination. From the gendered division of labor, compulsory heteronormativity as the structuring logic for state control and social ordering, and the intersections of race, gender and class to categorize bodies along a hierarchy of power, these concepts have gained traction in explaining different and intersecting systems of domination. From a decolonial perspective, scholars have linked hegemonic constructions of gender and sexuality to colonization, as they enable the organization of relations of power that position the White, Male, colonizer at the top of a system that subordinates colonized masculinities, femininities, and sexualities. Much of the discourse on the struggles for gender and sexual liberation, however, have been assimilated by Western, liberal, nation-states. In what has been termed ‘homonationalism’, liberal states are increasingly integrating gender equality and LGBTQIA+ inclusiveness as part of their liberal and ‘progressive’ national identity, simultaneously reproducing the position of non-Western, ‘illiberal’, states as the primitive Other. Similarly, the discourse of gender equality and LGBTQIA+ rights has been adopted by Israel in an attempt to ‘pinkwash’ a system of apartheid imposed on Palestinians, the illegal occupation of Palestine, and the human rights abuses of the settler colony. On the other hand, women’s collectives and queer communities in the (post)colony have continuously criticized their marginalization from decolonial struggles. Gender and sexual perspectives and activists are often excluded in the struggles for self-determination, sidelining the intersecting oppressions of colonization, patriarchy, and hetero-normativity.

Bringing to the forefront queer and feminist perspectives from Palestine, this event will explore the ways in which gender and sexuality are entangled in colonialism and power. Centering the experiences of activists, and queer and feminist resistance, this event asks: In which ways are gender, sexuality, and hetero-normativity implicated in the production of (post)colonial subjects? How are heteronormativity and patriarchy mobilized to enable colonial domination? How does pinkwashing participate in the exclusion of ‘non-Western’ LGBTIAQ+ subjectivities? What is the experience of queer and feminist activism in resisting colonial oppression? Based on these questions, this event builds on the premise that the struggle against colonialism, patriarchy, and cis-heteronormativity cannot be neatly separated, and thus, transnational networks of solidarity must be grounded in the experiences of LGBTIAQ+ subjects and feminist activism fighting against colonial domination.

About our speakers:

Haneen Maikey is a queer feminist organizer, co-founder and former director of the LGBT and queer grassroots organization alQaws for Sexual and Gender Diversity in Palestinian Society.

Hala Marshood is a Palestinian political and feminist organizer, part of the feminist movement “Tala’at”, and a researcher in political economy.

Izzeddin Araj (Moderator) is a PhD candidate in anthropology at the Graduate Institute. His works centres around reproduction politics in Palestine/ Israel.

Relevant resources:

Signposts from alQaws: A Decade of Building a Queer Palestinian Discourse

Queers Resisting Zionism: On Authority and Accountability Beyond Homonationalism

Tali’at: Putting feminism at the center of Palestinian liberation

PDC and QISA and excited to present an informal chat on experiences of queer working professionals!

We live in a world so absorbed by the competitive nature of employment and wanting the perfect life, that we often forget to pause and take in the various things happening around us. We don’t realize that it’s not just the employers choosing us but also us choosing our future employees. Keeping in mind that November is the Gender & Diversity month and with the much-growing support towards the LGBTQIA+ community and awareness around the community and how to make it more inclusive in the existing system, this panel discussion aims to bring together Queer employees from various avenues of employment here, in Geneva; namely from the IOs, NGOs, Private sector, etc. The motive is to discuss how in the 21st-century workplace, the community is made to feel safer, included, and heard.

Join us for an event of creative expression, deconstructing media and representation, and self-photography.

We are happy to announce that QISA will be collaborating with the Student Initiative on Asia (SIA) to present Dr. Akkai Padmashali. She will be speaking on her work, activism, and legacy in India as a transwoman.

Gloria Wekker's dissertation research was entitled "I am a gold Coin", after the proverb working-class Afro-Surinamese women mentioned most often when she asked them to name a proverb that said something meaningful about their own sense of (sexual) self. ‘I am a gold coin/ I pass through many hands/ but I do not lose my value’, speaks to the working-class value system, whereby a woman may have had many – either male or female – partners, but that does not diminish her value, as would be in the case in a middle-class setting. The proverb, like so many others in rich African Surinamese oral culture coined by women themselves, compares working-class women to gold coins that pass from hand to hand, but do not diminish in value.

In her presentation, Gloria Wekker will centrally address the  question how enslaved women were able to reconcile two opposed cultural and ideological systems, a Western and a West African system, in the context of which they had to realise their sexual subjecthood.

Gloria Wekker is Emeritus Professor of Gender and Ethnicity at Utrecht University in the Netherlands. She specializes in social and cultural anthropology with a focus on gender studies, sexuality studies, African American and Caribbean studies.

Her publications include White Innocence: Paradoxes of Colonialism and Race and The Politics of Passion: Women's Sexual Culture the Afro-Caribbean Diaspora for which she was the winner of the Ruth Benedict prize from the American Anthropological Association in 2007. Dr. Wekker was nominated in 2004 for the Dutch Scientific Council's Triomfprijs (Triumph Prize).

PLEASE NOTE: Access to indoor public events is limited to attendees with a Swiss or European COVID certificate. In addition, face masks must be worn to all in-person events at the Graduate Institute.

Join us for a reading session on excerpts from our two guest speakers, Dr. Gloria Wekker and Dr. Akkai Padmashali!