By Ayesha Munawar
UC Santa Barbara history alumnus Justin Bengry was the lead researcher on an innovative interactive project that documents the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) communities in the United Kingdom.
UC Santa Barbara alum and Pride of Place researcher, Justin Bengry, in recent virtual colloqium for UCSB’s History Department.
He presented the public history project Pride of Place: England’s LGBTQ Heritage to UCSB faculty and students at a recent virtual History Department colloquium. Bengry teaches at Goldsmiths, University of London and is the director of its Center for Queer Research.
“The primary goals of the project are to identity, to celebrate, and to map LGBTQ through the landscapes and built environment of England,” Bengry said.
The crowdsourced map portion of the project Pride of Place: England’s LGBTQ Heritage.
Bengry oversees Goldsmiths’ MA in Queer History, the first of its kind in the world. He earned his PhD in history and feminist studies at UCSB in 2010.
His Pride of Place project features a crowdsourced map to collect and generate knowledge about the LGBTQ past, present, and future of England. It is a collaboration between Leeds Beckett University and Historic England, a public agency.
From the frontiers of the Roman Empire to the gay bars of recent times, Bengry and his collaborators focused on what constituted queer history and who could be included in that.
“Participants would ask ‘what is queer history,’ and we would respond ‘it’s what you tell us it is’,” Bengry said.
After collecting responses during the gradual implementation of the digital site, the project concluded with nearly 2000 points mapped around London, showing queer history’s dominance there. “[We were] creating an archive of history, how can we queer the map, and what that might mean,” says Bengry.
Along with the original crowdsourced map, new listings that were designated as protected sites made up another part of the project. Several dozen sites in other parts of England included the Grave of Amelia Edwards in Bristol and St Ann’s Court in Chertsey.
“These are locations that have a statutory designation of protection on the basis of their LGBTQ history and heritage significance,” Bengry said.
St Ann’s Court., an LGBTQ heritage site beyond London.
The layout of St Ann’s Court’s building, for example, was designed specifically to protect its homosexual inhabitants and keep knowledge of their homosexual relationships from outsiders during an era before decriminalization.
Pride of Place also envisioned the future in that it is designed to be an ongoing work, continually updated with public input.
Ayesha Munawar is a fourth year UCSB student majoring in Communication. She is a web and social media intern for the Division of Humanities and Fine Arts.