Building up on experiences from the Euro Bi+ Assembly 2024, which I initiated and co-organized with activists from Turkey, Italy, Germany and the Netherlands, this interactive workshop shall be a space for us to come together and discuss the role that academic research should play in our future pan-European bi+ organization.
Drawing from my own background as bi+ activist, researcher, workshop host, and journalist, I will first give a brief input about what I understand the value and political commitments of critical theorizing to be. In conversation with the workshops participants, we will then identify the (local and global) needs of the organizations and collectives they represent. Guiding questions are: What empirical data (could) help strengthen their community building and advocacy work? Do their networks of organizers, activists, and social workers have the academic tools they require? What theoretical framings, research outputs, articles and book are useful for their work?
Samu/elle Striewski is a non-binary bi+ activist, writer, drag artist, and emerging scholar. They are a Rhodes Scholar at the University of Oxford, where they study political theory, and from 2023 to 2025 they have served on the board of BiNe – Bisexuelles Netzwerk e.V., the German national bi+ network. In the past years, they co-organised the Bi+ Pride 2023 in Hamburg, initiated the Euro Bi+ Assembly in 2024, and since 2022 co-edit the bi+ community journal BiJou. Their journalistic and academic writing centers on trans* and bi+ visibility as well as critical theory. Samu/elle facilitates workshops on bi+ empowerment and drag, and is currently co-editing an anthology on the contemporary drag scene in Germany.
