WikiConference India 2011/Submissions/Documenting Indian LGBT space

Timestamp

12:06, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Title of the submission

Documenting Indian LGBT space

Type of submission (workshop, tutorial, or presentation)

Presentation

Author of the submission

Sridhar Rangayan

E-mail address or username (if username, please confirm email address in Special:Preferences)

sridhar.rangayan@gmail.com

State of your origin (Country, if you are not based in India)

Mumbai, Maharashtra, India

Affiliation, if any (organization, company etc.)

Solaris Pictures, KASHISH Mumbai International Queer Film Festival, The Humsafar Trust, Bombay Dost

Personal homepage or blog

http://www.solarispictures.com

Abstract (maximum 500 words)

The Indian LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) space has changed dramatically over the recent years. The decriminalization of homosexuality in 2009 by a Delhi High Court judgement, after almost two decades of litigation and lobbying has been hailed as the turning point. There has been more openness and acceptance of LGBT persons in India and there have been a burst of both commercial and social LGBT initiatives. All of it has been ascribed to the judgement.

But that obviously is a fallacy. One single event or one single person cannot define history. Over the past decades, and in fact over past centuries, there have been numerous people (writers, filmmakers, artists, lawyers, activists, social entrepreneurs, medical professionals, etc), events (political, legal, media, artistic and cultural) and social/artistic /cultural outputs like books, films, essays, festivals and media coverage that has led to this (supposed) liberalization and (alleged) change in social attitudes. What perhaps is needed is proper documentation, indexing, referencing and interweaving / enmeshing it with existing cross media materials.

Wikipedia and Wikimedia could be an appropriately rich platform to accomplish this. But as of now pages and articles related to Indian LGBT space on Wikipedia and Wikimedia is very limited and scattered.

How do we increase and enrich the documentation? How do we bring all the information under one umbrella and integrate them so that the Indian LGBT movement can be seen with clarity and unambiguously?

How do we integrate other documentation works like Project Bolo – Indian LGBT Oral History Project (http://www.projectbolo.com) with Wikipedia and Wikimedia?

And most importantly how do we involve the Indian LGBT community themselves in this project to give a correct and unambivalent historical perspective to the Indian LGBT movement?

The presentation 'Documenting Indian LGBT Space' would highlight, analyze, question and tries to find some rudimentary solutions to the above aspects - through a 10 min presentation and a 10 min documentary video film on the same topic from Project Bolo.

Track (Community/Knowledge/Outreach/Technology)

Knowledge

Will you attend Wikiconference if your submission is not accepted?

Yes

Slides or further information (optional)

http://www.projectbolo.com - Project Bolo – Indian LGBT Oral History Project