Sorry for cross-posting
One week left to submit your abstract!
The call for proposals for our conference “LGBTQ+ Refugees in the Welfare State: Research, Policy and Practitioners in Dialogue” closes on 25 March.
The conference, hosted by the Department of Human Geography at Uppsala University, is built around a simple but important idea: research and practice need to be in genuine conversation. Not parallel monologues, real dialogue.
We have confirmed participation from the UNHCR and migration authorities from Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and the Netherlands. Our three keynote speakers, Eleonora Azzurra Mantovani (EUAA), S. Chelvan (33 Bedford Row), and Moira Dustin (University of Sussex), bring together (contesting) perspectives from policy, law, and research that rarely sit in the same room.
If you are working on questions around LGBTQ+ refugees, asylum procedures, welfare state integration, or queer migration more broadly: this is your space. We welcome submissions from researchers at all career stages, as well as practitioners and policy professionals with research to share.
Abstracts of up to 250 words for presentations or posters. Extended abstracts of up to 1,500 words for those interested in contributing to a policy brief anthology.
The conference takes place 21–22 May 2026 in Uppsala, in person.
Submit here https://www.uu.se/institution/kulturgeografiska/samverkan/lgbtq--refugees-i…
Best,
Thomas
Thomas Wimark, Ph.D.
Senior Lecturer/Associate Professor in Human Geography
Pronouns: he, him, his
Department of Human Geography
Uppsala University
Box 513
SE-75120 Uppsala
+46 18 4717377 (office)
https://www.uu.se/en/contact-and-organisation/staff?query=N20-646
När du har kontakt med oss på Uppsala universitet med e-post så innebär det att vi behandlar dina personuppgifter. För att läsa mer om hur vi gör det kan du läsa här: http://www.uu.se/om-uu/dataskydd-personuppgifter/
E-mailing Uppsala University means that we will process your personal data. For more information on how this is performed, please read here: http://www.uu.se/en/about-uu/data-protection-policy
Dear all,
Our new article was just published. We have published from the same data before in Finnish, but this is the first publication in English. It tackles social work education from LGBTQI+ perspectives and social work students' attitudes and knowledge gaps in Finland:
Clarke, K., Söderström, I., Sullivan, C. B., & Rossi, L. M. (2026). LGBTQI+ inclusion in Finnish social work education: reality or empty talk? Social Work Education, 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1080/02615479.2026.2639040
Abstract:
This article explores how homogenising views of equality and the lack of academic research on LGBTQI+ issues in Finnish social work contributes to the invisibility of gender and sexuality topics in social work education. It discusses the Finnish historical context of LGBTQI+ legislation and the struggle for legal equality. The article considers Finnish social work research on LGBTQI+ issues highlighting the shortcomings of social work practice knowledge with these communities. Through a multidimensional survey of master’s-level social work students across five Finnish universities, the study explores students’ attitudes, knowledge, and perceived readiness to work with LGBTQI+ service users. The findings show that students report positive attitudes toward LGBTQI+ people, but they also indicate significant gaps in knowledge, especially regarding structural discrimination and the specific needs of gender and sexual minorities. These gaps were more pronounced among heterosexual students, suggesting that personal identity may play a greater role than formal education in shaping awareness of LGBTQI+ issues. The findings of the limited survey imply the need for more explicit inclusion of LGBTQI+ perspectives in social work curricula, which require further research and pedagogical strategies that promote critical reflection, intersectional analysis, and LGBTQI+ affirmative practice.
Best regards, Ilo Söderström
Ilo Söderström
DSocSci, Postdoctoral researcher
Social Work
Tampere University
Hankkeet / Projects:
Sijaishuollon arjen utopiat: monivähemmistöiset nuoret kuvittelemassa ja tekemässä parempaa tulevaisuutta - Koneen Säätiö<https://koneensaatio.fi/apurahat-ja-residenssipaikat/sijaishuollon-arjen-ut…>
AFFIRM-ED —Affirmative education in social and healthcare for sexual and gender diversity – Nordic collaboration project 2025-2027<https://blogs.helsinki.fi/affirmed-nordic-lgbtqia/>
TUNI Luottamuksellinen - Confidential (3Y)
Hi all,
I wanted to make you aware of the upcoming deadline to submit a paper to the European Geographies of Sexualities Conference, which will be held at the end of August in Maribor, Slovenia.
Deadline: 16 March!
Theme: Discussing from Queer Peripheries: (Un)Desiring the Centre
If you research LGBTQ+ spaces, places or located communities, this may be of interest to you. The deadline for organised panels has passed, but if colleagues wanted to propose a Nordic specific panel, consider reaching out to the organisers (I am not an organiser, just an enthusiastic participant). Call for Papers is below and the conference website is here: EGS Conference 2026<https://sites.google.com/view/egsconference2026/home>
Best wishes,
Joe
"Critical human geography, queer geography, and other related social sciences and humanities have been experiencing a peripheral turn. However, a plethora of social relations, including those related to sexuality and gender, are still discussed from global metropolitan (queer) centres. Processes such as the gentrification of queer neighbourhoods, queer artistic production, memorialisation, cruising, and queer mobilities are often associated with Toronto, New York, Copenhagen, and other big cities, despite the fact that most of us live, work, love, consume, and produce in ordinary and small cities, towns, and villages. These are queer, too.
Increasingly, queer peripheries are finding their way into edited collections, special issues, and independent journal articles. However, they are still mainly taught and discussed from metropolitan centres, risking the fetishisation of the periphery as a text that can be safely consumed from the centre, maintaining a cognitive, emotional, and sensory distance from the material spaces of the peripheries. Conferences are one such occasion where we can get closer to the materialities of the places that host them. Conferences are spaces of temporary disciplinary centre-making. New papers are discussed, new special issues planned, new contracts formed, and friendships and relationships made.
At the conference in Maribor, we ask what happens when we not only empiricise and theorise, but also discuss and academically do queer periphery from the periphery itself. Are we, by organising this conference in a city (or town?) with fewer than 100,000 people and no official gay or lesbian bar, placing it at the centre of queer geographies? We invite contributions on, from, and about metropolitan centres and peripheries, as well as broader geographies of sexualities, to think broadly about what happens when academic work (which does not have to be about the periphery) is placed in the materiality of the queer periphery. What kind of potential does the text gain in the spatio-temporalities of the conference?"
Submit here: EGS Conference 2026 - Submissions<https://sites.google.com/view/egsconference2026/submissions>
Joe Jukes (they/them)
Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Project: Picture Me: presenting queer visual history
@joejukes.bsky.social<https://bsky.app/profile/joejukes.bsky.social>
Read more about my research here.<https://researchportal.tuni.fi/en/persons/joseph-jukes/#:~:text=I%20joined%….>
[cid:40e1cfd4-07e5-4c7d-bfcd-f108d88e4d11]
[cid:b9577e8f-95da-467b-90b9-b2e1b9d13e03]
Recent publications:
Jukes, J. (2025) LGBTQ+ friendship and spatial commitments: Queer socialities in the making of a new rural. In Bain, AL., Podmore, JA. and Arun-Pina, C. (Eds.) Queer Geographies: Key Debates and Contending Perspectives. Access here<https://www.researchgate.net/publication/398152089_LGBTQ_friendship_and_spa…>.
Garcia Lopez, M., Brownhill, S., Gaggiotti, M. and Jukes, J. (2025) The Process (2023): Non-Professional Film Performance and Representing Embodied Trauma through Documentary. Open Screens, 7(3): pp. 1–17. DOI: https://doi.org/10.16995/os.18695
Dear colleagues of the Nordic Network for LGBTQ+ Research on Health and Living Conditions,
We are delighted to invite you to save the date for our upcoming network meeting and conference, to be held at Tampere University, Finland, on 8–9 October 2026.
Theme: Creating New Spaces
This meeting invites us to think together about how we create and sustain new spaces for collaborations, research ideas, theoretical development and public engagement. At a time when LGBTQ+ rights are under threat across the world and with hard-won legal protections being rolled back, the work of this network feels more urgent than ever. Research communities can themselves be spaces of hope where knowledge is broadened collectively and connections are built and cultivated across borders and disciplines. This meeting is an opportunity for both established and early-career researchers to share ideas, present their work, forge new partnerships, and collectively reflect on how Nordic LGBTQ+ health and welfare research can make a difference.
Full details including the call for papers, programme, and registration will be circulated later this spring. In the meantime, please hold the dates and share this invitation widely with colleagues who may be interested. If you have suggestions for keynotes, let us know.
We look forward to meeting you in Tampere!
Warm regards,
The Organizing Group,
Kiin Catrine Andersson (Malmö University), Venla Koivuluhta (Tampere University), Valtteri Vähä-Savo (Tampere University), Ilo Söderström (Tampere University), Joa Hiitola (Tampere University), Emilia Brusila (University of Lapland), Ylva Odenbring (University of Gothenburg), Thomas Wimark (Uppsala University), Madeleine Eriksson Kirsch (Stockholm University), Mats Christiansen (Uppsala University), Amanda Klysing (Lund University)
- - - - - -
Kiin Catrine Andersson
Docent i socialt arbete
Institutionen för socialt arbete, Malmö universitet
Hälsa och samhälle, 205 06 Malmö
Tfn: 040-665 85 77
Dear all,
Please see attached Call for Papers: Journal of Lesbian Studies
Nordic Queer Identities and Movements: Coalitions, Ruptures and Repairs
Editors
Kiin Catrine Andersson, Malmö University and Amanda Klysing, Lund University
Hoping for many contributions from the network!
Amanda and Kiin
- - - - - -
Kiin Catrine Andersson
Docent i socialt arbete
Institutionen för socialt arbete, Malmö universitet
Hälsa och samhälle, 205 06 Malmö
Tfn: 040-665 85 77
Dear all,
I would like to share a recent publication. The article is entitled “I couldn’t Even Be in the Corridors During Breaks Because I Didn’t Feel Safe”: LGBTQ+ Students’ Experiences of (Un)Safe Spaces in Secondary Schools and is published in NORA: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/08038740.2025.2607566
All the very best,
Ylva
Ylva Odenbring
Professor of Education (PhD)
UNIVERSITY OF GOTHENBURG
Department of Education and Special Education
Visiting address: Västra Hamngatan 25
PO Box 100, SE-405 30 Gothenburg
Phone +46 317862840
Cell +46 766182840
Principal investigator, PI: Mental health issues and victimization among LGBTQI-youth<https://www.gu.se/en/research/mental-health-issues-and-victimization-among-…>
Selection of recent publications:
Görlich, A., Odenbring, Y., Sorbring, E. & Sørensen, N U. (2026). “I couldn't even be in the corridors during breaks because I didn't feel safe”: LGBTQ+ students’ experiences of (un)safe spaces in secondary schools, NORA. https://doi.org/10.1080/08038740.2025.2607566
Odenbring, Y. (2025). Skolans frontlinjepersonal: en omvärldsspaning av arbetsplatsvåld i den svenska skolan. Socialmedicinsk tidskrift. https://doi.org/10.62607/smt.v102i4-5.56185
Odenbring, Y. (2025). Uppväxtvillkor och matfattigdom: Skollunchens betydelse för en likvärdig skola. Socialmedicinsk tidskrift. https://doi.org/10.62607/smt.v102i3.59415
Odenbring, Y. & Lindén, L. (2025). Reaching everyone: school nurses’ experiences of including refugee and migrant students in the extended school-based HPV vaccination programme in Sweden. Journal of Research in Nursing. https://doi.org/10.1177/17449871251329001
Dear all,
And thank you to all of you who came to Malmö and made it such an interesting and fun two days! I heard from several people that the vibes were so good - love that!
Below I include notes from the network meeting which we held on the last day which concern among other things publication plans and other plans for the future.
I will soon also send out invitations for the mentioned meetings!
Please let me know if you have any suggestions for network activities or questions, and I hope to see you on Zoom!
Kiin
Notes from Network meeting with LGBTQ+-H-L network
Malmö Nov 25th, 2025
Information
We started off with some good news about research funding for network members Ylva Moberg, Charlotta Carlström and Michael Nebeling Petersen! Congratulations!
Next, Jukka Lehtonen told us a little bit about a two-day conference Enhancing Nordic collaboration on public data gathering on LGBTI+ people in Nordic countries, that the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare (THL) och Nordic Council of Ministers arranged during the fall. There will be a report published eventually and Jukka will send it out on the email list.
Email list
We discussed using the email list more actively to share new publications, conferences and calls – Kiin will send out a reminder about this and an invitation to share recent publications!
If we manage to use it more we can consider making a basic newsletter to gather information, but right now we don’t need that.
Publications
There is currently work being done to initiate an edited book on LGBTQ+ youth and professionals related to school environments of different kinds – contact Lee Hildebrand and Jack Lukkerz if you want more information about this: lee.a.hildebrand(a)gmail.com<mailto:lee.a.hildebrand@gmail.com>; jack.lukkerz(a)mau.se<mailto:jack.lukkerz@mau.se>
Considering the theme of this network meeting it might be interesting for one of us to guest edit a Special Collection for International Journal of Qualitative Methods, there is a call on that out.
Ella Ben Hagai highlighted that the Journal of Lesbian Studies was interested in a special issue on Nordic queer culture in some way. Kiin Catrine Andersson and Amanda Klysing will work on a proposal for a call and see where that takes us.
Róisín Ryan Flood is editor for Sexualities and that they are always interested in suggestions for special issues.
Thomas Wimark also mentioned that the journal of Gender, Place & Culture were interested in manuscripts using quantitative methods, relating to place in some way – very broadly.
Plans for the spring
We agreed that we want to continue with the joint writing time via Zoom and Kiin will send out invitations for this.
We also wanted to do a seminar on applications in January where we read each others applications and give suggestions. Kiin will coordinate this and send out an invite.
Plans for next network meeting
Next network meeting will be at Tampere University, Finland! Joa Hiitola will be the local contact person for this, and arrange it together with the coordination group. If you want to participate in the coordination group (we are mostly Swedes right now and others are very welcome) you can email Kiin.
One possible theme we discussed was Public engagement, but in order to include NGOs and professionals we would need to do a bigger conference format with a public call. We will look into applying for funding and possibly doing this in 2027.
The theme for the network meeting 2026 will be very broad: Creating new spaces – for collaborations, new studies, theoretical development and public engagement, which we hope will be good basis for developing a conference for the year after.
We will include space at the network meeting to discuss disciplinary issues and institutional challenges as this was something we all struggled with.
More information on the network meeting will follow.
- - - - - -
Kiin Catrine Andersson
Docent i socialt arbete
Institutionen för socialt arbete, Malmö universitet
Hälsa och samhälle, 205 06 Malmö
Tfn: 040-665 85 77
Sorry for cross posting
We hereby invite you to the conference organized by the Department of Human geography, Uppsala university and the QUEEN (Queer rEfugees rEsearch in the Nordics) network:
“LGBTQ+ refugees in the welfare state: Research, policy and practitioners in dialogue”
Date: May 21-22, 2026
Place: Department of Human Geography, Uppsala University, Sweden
Keynote speakers: Eleonora Azzurra Mantovani, Asylum process officer at the European Union Agency for Asylum (EUAA), Dr. S Chelvan, Head of immigration at 33 Bedford row, and Dr. Moira Dustin, University of Sussex.
The EU Pact on Migration and Asylum and the new EUAA Practical Guide for applicants with diverse sexual orientations, gender identities, gender expressions, and sex characteristics will significantly shape asylum procedures for LGBTQ+ refugees in EU countries in the coming years. Simultaneously, research in the field of queer refugees has reached a point where deeper dialogue with practitioners is essential.
The conference, funded by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, aims to create meaningful dialogue between researchers and practitioners, such as migration authorities, lawyers, and NGOs, rather than focusing solely on traditional academic presentations. The goal is to create a collaborative space where research informs practice and policy.
The program combines keynotes, panel discussions, and short research presentations with interactive elements, including small-group discussions, poster sessions, and policy brief exchanges.
Learn more and submit abstract now:
https://www.uu.se/institution/kulturgeografiska/samverkan/lgbtq--refugees-i…
Contact: queen2026(a)uu.se<mailto:queen2026@uu.se>
Have a nice weekend,
Thomas
Thomas Wimark, Ph.D.
Senior Lecturer/Associate Professor in Human Geography
Pronouns: he, him, his
Department of Human Geography
Uppsala University
Box 513
SE-75120 Uppsala
+46 18 4717377 (office)
https://www.uu.se/en/contact-and-organisation/staff?query=N20-646
När du har kontakt med oss på Uppsala universitet med e-post så innebär det att vi behandlar dina personuppgifter. För att läsa mer om hur vi gör det kan du läsa här: http://www.uu.se/om-uu/dataskydd-personuppgifter/
E-mailing Uppsala University means that we will process your personal data. For more information on how this is performed, please read here: http://www.uu.se/en/about-uu/data-protection-policy
Welcome to our joint writing time on Zoom.
We start with a short round of introductions and goals for the session. Then we re-convene the last 15 minutes to report and discuss any challenges.
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Kiin Catrine Andersson bjuder in dig till ett schemalagt möte på Zoom.
Gå med i möte på Zoom
https://mau-se.zoom.us/j/63844525257
Mötes-ID: 638 4452 5257
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Mobil med ett tryck
+46850500829,,63844525257# Sverige
+46850520017,,63844525257# Sverige
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Delta via SIP
63844525257(a)109.105.112.236
• 63844525257(a)109.105.112.235
Instruktioner för att gå med
https://mau-se.zoom.us/meetings/63844525257/invitations?signature=J6Lswz2Is…
──────────
Welcome to our joint writing time on Zoom.
We start with a short round of introductions and goals for the session. Then we re-convene the last 15 minutes to report and discuss any challenges.
──────────
Kiin Catrine Andersson bjuder in dig till ett schemalagt möte på Zoom.
Gå med i möte på Zoom
https://mau-se.zoom.us/j/69456416459
Mötes-ID: 694 5641 6459
---
Mobil med ett tryck
+46850163827,,69456416459# Sverige
+46850500828,,69456416459# Sverige
---
Delta via SIP
69456416459(a)109.105.112.236
• 69456416459(a)109.105.112.235
Instruktioner för att gå med
https://mau-se.zoom.us/meetings/69456416459/invitations?signature=tMtYzsxY9…
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