QUEERDEM is a scientific research project funded by the City of Vienna Culture
and will be carried out at the Institute for Advanced Studies from March 2023 to August 2024.

Queer people are socially restricted and endangered by a wide range of unequal treatment: from discrimination and stereotyping in the context of paid work, to experiences of violence and social exclusion in the public sphere, to the associated psychological stress and increased suicidal tendencies.

The pandemic has once again made it clear that queer forms of intimacy and care are not given equal consideration in society. The lockdown regulations hardly allowed for community outside of heteronormative couple and family constellations that take place in the same household.

Attacks on queer rights and people are currently on the rise. These include political efforts to ban the visibility of LGBTQIA+ people from certain "zones", media and textbooks (e.g. in Poland or Hungary), as well as attacks on queer centers, museums and events (e.g. in Berlin or Bratislava).

Taken together, all these developments call for research into the current situation of queer people in order to better understand everyday perceptions and actions and to establish their perspectives more strongly as a relevant experience in the scientific and political field of action.

This is the aim of the QUEERDEM project, which examines the realities and practices of LGBTQIA+ people in Vienna. The focus is placed on different phases and contexts (e.g. people in retirement or without Austrian citizenship) in order to approach the diversity of life contexts.

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