“[T]he community archive can represent not only the establishment of a place where the past is documented and passively collected but, crucially, also a space in which the archive can become a significant tool for discovery, education, and empowerment.” – Andrew Flinn¹

As both a research initiative and a community-based archives, the Arizona Queer Archives is an archival laboratory of sorts where practice and theory are engaged to make change in, for, and with our home communities. Our collections and how we make them ‘archival’ are integral to understanding local and everyday LGBTQI histories. We encourage faculty, teachers, and community organizers to use our work in their own teaching. Here are some of the ways we, too, engage the community-based archives in the classroom:

In Professor Jamie A. Lee’s Fall 2020 graduate course “Community-Based Archives & Museums,” community archivists and scholars presented in class about their trajectories and their archival work:

Students also produced Info-Graphics to educate the general public about a distinct area of research within the realm of Community-Based Archives & Museums. Here are just a few examples:

The AQA Educational Guide was created by Gus Meuschke, an intern from Art & Visual Culture Education, School of Art in Spring 2020. LINK

Arizona Queer Archives representatives have also presented in both graduate and undergraduate courses in Creative Writing; Rhetoric, Composition, and the Teaching of English, RCTE; History; Art and Visual Culture Education; Fred Fox School of Music; and Gender & Women’s Studies.

Flinn, Andrew. “Archival Activism: Independent and Community-led Archives, Radical Public History and the Heritage Professions.” 2011.