• An IRN meeting convened on December 6, 2008. IRN representatives
and members from each region besides the Middle East were present at this
productive meeting at which challenges and goals were discussed for all of
the regions as well as IRN in general.
• Both IRN-Africa and IRN-Latin America/Caribbean continue to elicit
scholarly collaboration through their respective IRN journals, Outliers and
Sexualidades. Sexualidades recently published its third issue, and Outliers presented
its second call for submissions. These journals are electronically available
on the IRN website.
• IRN Committee Advisors Rafael de la Dehesa (IRN-Latin America),
Thomas Glave (IRN-Caribbean) and Rosamond King (IRN-Caribbean) are
pioneering the effort to collaborate on sub-regional needs. While keeping
with the spirit of trans-nationalism and regional solidarity, IRN leaders of all
regions are exploring the diverse needs within their areas based on complex
geo-political/cultural/linguistic histories as well as current realities.
• IRN-Asia will hold an IRN workshop followed by a reception at the International
Association for the Study of Sexuality, Culture and Society (IASSCS)
conference to be held in Hanoi, Vietnam, in April 2009. Two IRN representatives,
Yukiko Hanawa of IRN-Asia, and Sybille Nyeck of IRN-Africa,
have also submitted abstracts for panel presentations for the conference. The
IASSCS conference will provide a platform for IRN growth, and especially
for that of the IRN-Asia region. In addition, a recent meeting between IRN
and some members of the IASSCS executive board gave rise to the possibility
of a more formal and sustainable relationship between IRN and IASSCS.
We welcome all suggestions to help promote the IRN endeavors. In this regard
we encourage you to register, if you haven’t done so already, on the IRN
website and connect with queer artists, activists, and scholars globally.
