- and for a cross-border queer networked Europe
(ke) The annual meeting of German-speaking women’s archives took place in Bochum on the last weekend in September under the motto: “Difference as a strength of feminist archive work”. Three feminist archives: the Madonna Archive, LIESELLE, and ausZeiten organised the conference. There were 60 participants from around 30 lesbian/women’s archives, libraries, and documentation centres from Austria, Luxembourg, Switzerland, northern Italy, and Germany.
Natalie von Laufenberg and Kathrin Eckhart took part on behalf of the CID. We visited the impressive archives and discussed class and gender, recording standards, databases, funding, and lobbying. As an exciting horizon for the next meeting, the topic of AI-supported research opened up with its promises and new work assignments. We have definitely realised one thing: We are not afraid of digital.
The networking programme “Together we preserve our future”, organised by our umbrella organisation i.d.a. and the ddf archive, and funded by the EU education initiative ERASMUS+, has been running since this summer. From Iceland to Cyprus, thirty feminist library and archive experts have been travelling to other archives since Autumn 2024 to share their knowledge, and will continue through Spring 2025.
We are proud to be part of it: From November 18th, three young colleagues visited us for a week: Laura Peter and Nane Pleger from Leipzig’s Louise Otto-Peters Archive and Stephanie Velis from DENKtRÄUME in Hamburg.
The travellers brought their expertise with them and discovered new perspectives. We exchanged ideas on everything from project work, acquisition, and user support to the conceptualisation of events and social media content. There was also a great deal of interest in how work is organised in Luxembourg and how feminist content can be communicated in day-to-day work, as well as to political and cultural institutions. During their stay, they visited other Luxembourgish libraries, archives, and organisations.
“In Zeiten, in denen rechtsextreme, antifeministische Strömungen Aufwind bekommen, in denen ein Rassist, Sexist, Anti-Demokrat zum US-Präsidenten gewählt wird, finde ich es extrem wichtig, mich mit Menschen zu vernetzen, deren Arbeit darauf ausgerichtet ist, gegen diese Demokratiefeindlichkeit zu kämpfen. Das tolle an dem Erasmus+ Programm ist dabei, dass es eine Vernetzung über Ländergrenzen hinweg ist. Ich glaube, dass ich aus dem Job-Shawdoing am CID viel Hoffnung, Mut und Inspiration ziehen kann, um mich weiter in Leipzig für eine starke Demokratie einzusetzen.” – Nane Plager
“In einer Zeit zunehmender Polarisierung halte ich es für entscheidend, Brücken zu bauen gemeinsam zu arbeiten und im Dialog zu bleiben. Das Erasmus+-Programm bietet mir die Möglichkeit, das CID kennenzulernen und im Austausch voneinander zu lernen. Ich habe mich für das CID und Luxemburg entschieden, da ich dort noch nie gewesen bin und besonders die feministische Kinder- und Jugendbuchabteilung schätze, die eine inspirierende Arbeit leistet.” – Stephanie Velis
