AJ Kurdi is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Ethnic Studies, with a designated emphasis in Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies. His dissertation research is a comparative study on different forms of ethnic minority queer organizing in Montreal, Budapest, and Paris, and how they shape the priorities and political orientations of mainstream LGBTQI movements, laws and public policies in North America and Europe.
AJ's Hildebrand Fellowship will support his fieldwork in Montreal during the monthlong Fierté Montréal celebration. He will examine the relationship between queer Arab activist groups and mainstream LGBT organizations in Quebec. Through interviews and observations, AJ hopes to better understand the dynamics and tensions that underlie these alliances, especially as larger LGBT groups across Canada adopt more explicitly "intersectional" goals.
AJ’s previous work focuses broadly on queer social movement debates and transnational networks in West Asia and the various forms of discrimination queer Romani people face in Central and Eastern Europe. He has published in the Journal of Israeli History, Critical Romani Studies, and International Journal of Discrimination and the Law
