My ARIA Research project was a historical and archival project on McGill's history of student and faculty advocacy around LGBTQIA2S+ issues. The final product will take two forms, first of an exhibit in the Red Path Library lobby during October for Queer History Month, and second as an open access digital exhibit that will outlive the physical one.
As Dr. Ketchum’s ARIA Intern, I assisted her in sourcing materials from numerous Archives in Montreal, including the Archives Lesbiennes du Québec, the Archives Gaies du Québec, the Ï㽶ÊÓƵ archives, the Queer McGill archives, the Union for Gender Empowerment archives as well as from several digital databases. I also assisted in sorting and documenting key finds from the thousands of materials collected, in addition to helping curate both exhibits.
I was interested in doing an ARIA project because it was a good opportunity to find work as a research assistant with a professor who had similar research interests to my own, all while learning critical skills and developing researching experience. Plus, it gave me a low stakes opportunity to confirm whether this kind of work was right for me, which I am happy to confirm it is!
In taking on this internship, I knew I wanted to familiarize myself with the archival process. When I started the ARIA, I knew nothing about archival research or how to navigate databases. Now I am happy to say that I feel confident in my ability to navigate even relatively challenging databases and archives. Moreover, I was happy to learn about the actual history we were researching. It was certainly an objective of mine to become knowledgeable on this history and I am proud to say that I have done so. This is a topic especially dear to me since I am involved in a number of LGBTQ+ student groups at McGill, so I’ve seen this as an opportunity to learn from my own history. Furthermore, was very pleased to have become more comfortable with using technological resource tools; many of the applications and digital spaces I have used through out this project I was using for the first time.
Although I enjoyed nearly all the work involved in the ARIA, I have a few favorites. For one, I was very happy to have gotten the chance to essentially produce the Queer McGill digital archives. Although sone documents had been scanned and put on a google drive, the vast majority of the materials had no digital copy. In order to know what was inside these boxes of old materials I essentially had to sort through all of it anyways, so it wasn’t much harder to put it all together into an archive. It took dozens of hours of work, but I am really happy I did it; you never know when something could happen to the originals to make them lost forever, plus now we have this great digital resource that anyone in the McGill community or anyone doing research can easily access. I also really enjoyed getting to visit the Archive Gaie du Québec, I was lucky enough to be introduced to a few gay history researchers I had read the works of, and it was wonderful to get to speak with them, hear what they had to say about the history, and be introduced to the archives.
One challenge I encountered early on was navigating the McGill archives, an archive that professors have told me was one of the hardest to navigate they have ever seen. However, I remembered what my professor told me about this being a learning experience and that it was fine for me to ask for help. So, I worked up the courage to speak with my professor about it and she directed me to a librarian at the McGill front desk. This librarian took the time to Zoom call me and give me a lesson on how to navigate the archive, I didn’t have much trouble with it after that. I wouldn’t have been able to get access to that kind of individual attention had it not been for my professor. It was a very special opportunity.
More then providing me with the skills and experience, the ARIA gave me the chance to try out the kind of work I want to do, making my choices for the future clearer and more accessible. The ARIA allowed me to gain a critical connection with a brilliant professor I would not have gotten to learn from otherwise. It has given me skills and research knowledge that I will carry into my graduate studies, and it has perfectly positioned me for future positions as a research assistant; especially considering that my professor was so impressed with my work that she has hired me as an RA for another project.
A million thanks to the generous donor of the Undergraduate Experiential Learning Opportunities Support Fund, without them this amazing opportunity would not have been possible for me!
