New Year and a brand new CMR podcast episode! Our seventh episode is the first of many to come in 2022.
In this episode Manar Kawasmi, a PhD Candidate in Social Anthropology at the University of St Andrews talks to Haneen Maikey, a Palestinian feminist queer activist and organiser. Haneen is the co-founder and former director of al-Qaws for Sexual and Gender Diversity in Palestinian Society, which is a Palestinian LGBT+ grassroots activist organisation. Manar and Haneen discuss the context in which al-Qaws was established and its main goals in countering colonialism, homophobia, and patriarchy. They also talk about pinkwashing and how it exposes the relationship between these three forces. For al-Qaws, countering pinkwashing works as a main queer activist strategy to counter settler-colonialism in the context of Palestine/Israel. They further discuss queer politics and the importance of anti-colonial analysis to queer liberation movements, and the benefits of digital online work for expanding grassroots queer activist networks.