Learning not to Breathe the Poison: Decolonial Queer Approaches to Researching Queer and Trans Lives in Central Asia - Mariya Levitanus

This talk examines the ethical, emotional, and political complexities of researching queer, trans, and gender-diverse communities in Kazakhstan and broader Central Asia. Drawing from my doctoral research on queer everyday life in Kazakhstan, I reflect on my position as a researcher and psychotherapist—someone with mixed white heritage, a Russian speaker, and currently based in the West. By revisiting interview excerpts and personal reflections that were previously left out of academic publications, I open up conversations around self-disclosure, fear, and silence in authoritarian settings. I also reflect on how certain research and institutional practices, especially those shaped by colonial histories, can unintentionally repeat harmful patterns, despite our best intentions. Finally, I consider the emotional impact of building relationships during research, both for myself and the people I worked with. This session invites researchers and practitioners to critically reflect on how our identities, relationships and contexts can affect the ways we engage with marginalised communities, and think about ethical alternatives.

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Mariya is a scholar, queer activist, and psychotherapist from Kazakhstan. She earned her Doctorate in Psychotherapy from the University of Edinburgh in 2020. Her earlier research explored the everyday narratives of queer individuals in Kazakhstan, while her current work focuses on Russian queer and trans* migration to Central Asia following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

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This event is run by the Queer Minds Scotland Network (funded by the Royal Society of Edinburgh) but we welcome attendees based all across the globe. This workshop is open to anyone interested in the topics including community members, practitioners, policy makers, students and researchers.

A note on safety and inclusion: Queer Minds Scotland is a fully inclusive network and space of all LGBTQIA+ communities. We therefore take a zero tolerance approach to any discrimination that compromises the safety of the space i.e. transphobia, racism, ableism - and reserve the right to remove participants who may express such views. 

Joining instructions for Zoom will be sent on the morning of the event.