ABSTRACT
This collection is timely in questioning the institutionalization of queer theory and studies. The impact of queer theory has been highly uneven geographically, and the history of queer theory is also contested. I am currently engaged, with my colleague Christian Klesse, in a project on transnational activism around LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer) politics in Poland, and I have found specific concern over the parochialism of British and North American debates on queer theory. Our project has focused on notions of transnational solidarity around LGBTQ politics in Poland, and has involved interviews with activists and other actors in Poland, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and the UK about their experiences of transnational solidarity work. Discussing ‘queer’ in a European context, Nico Beger argues:
The term carries with it an excess of meanings, which it can never fully recognise or fulfil. Alongside this abundance of meaning, it is also a profoundly Anglo-American term that has become common currency in many international l/g/b/t cultures without ever taking on board all its Anglo-American contents, while at the same time being enriched by new meanings in different language contexts.
