Database

The article traces the framing of Muslim Europeans as the continent’s Other by focusing on the silencing of queer Muslims within public debates around ‘Islam and homosexuality’. Ignoring class as a factor in the violence produced by the gentrification of urban spaces, the pitting of the (implicitly white) gay community against the (implicitly straight) Muslim community posits the latter as a threat to the continent’s foundations that needs to be contained through forms of spatial governance in line with the neoliberal restructuring of the city. Maintaining that this is a Europe-wide phenomenon, the article looks at Amsterdam as exemplifying the European metropole as a site of pseudo-homophile Islamophobia. Simultaneously, with activist groups like the queer of color collective Strange Fruit, it is also representative of the strategies of resistance developed by groups whose presence is virtually erased through culture clash discourses, namely queer Muslims. The article argues that an intersectional queer of color activism, as practiced by Strange Fruit, and a queer of color critique building on it, allows to undermine binaries from the Muslim/European dichotomy to the normative coming out narrative, invariably positioning queers of color as ‘not properly gay’.

This article explores the results of a qualitative community-based research project on the intersectional experiences of sexual minority refugees living in Canada. Undertaken between 2008 and 2010, this study examines sexual minority refugees’ multifaceted experiences of migration, the refugee determination process, and settlement. Through an analysis of the inter-related themes of identity, refugeeness, and belonging, we hope to further investigate the ways in which Canadian refugee policies, social institutions, and dominant discourses contribute to the sociopolitical construction of sexual minority refugees. We conclude with an exploration of strategies for increasing protection of sexual minority refugees in Canada.

This article reports on the results of a needs assessment conducted for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) immigrants, asylees, refugees, and their allies in Southern Arizona, and it is the first study of its kind in the United States. Utilizing interview data collected with migrants, allies, and service providers in Tucson, Arizona, this article presents findings on the quality of service provision provided to this very underserved community pertaining to health care, housing, and legal services. The assessment shows that no services are provided specifically for LGBTQ migrants, and most LGBTQ migrants turn to family and friends when they have needs. The most significant result of this study pertains to the lack of cultural competence and an overall deficiency in terms of cultural awareness when it comes to the specific needs of LGBTQ migrants.

„Kann der homosexuelle Mensch darauf verwiesen werden, seine sexuelle Ausrichtung im Heimatland im Verborgenen auszuleben und nach außen nicht bekannt werden zu lassen?“ Diese Frage hat das OVG Münster kürzlich dem EuGH vorgelegt und damit indirekt eine bahnbrechende Entscheidung des britischen Supreme Court in Frage gestellt. Dir Lordrichter hatten 2010 im Fall HJ (Iran) and HAT (Cameroon) v SSHD befunden, dass ein Leben im Verborgenen entgegen der bisherigen Rechtsprechung unzumutbar ist. Verhandelt wird hier das, was im Englischen bildhaft als „the closet“ bezeichnet wird: Das Verbergen der Homosexualität im Privaten, sozusagen im Schrank.

This article considers the nature of silence in UK asylum cases involving lesbian and gay claimants, asking whether the ambiguous and textured quality of silence can be a productive site of resistance, or whether the effect of silence perpetuates the problematic conceptualization of the refugee as a subjugated actor whose voice is muted within a hearing. The article discusses silence in light of the formal provisions of the Refugee Convention and evidentiary necessities around proof of an objective/subjective fear of persecution, questioning the impact silence has on the rendering of testimony and whether it is detrimental to an asylum claim. The equivocal nature of silence imparts a vulnerability to interpretation, rendering it subject to the imposition of unsolicited meaning. Silence’s indeterminacy, it is suggested, should give pause to the court to proceed in a manner that invokes caution around such inference.

Determing what counts as sexuality and persecution within the terms of international refugee law is fraught with challenges. May decisions that seek to discern if a refugee was or was not homosexual, rely on discourses of sexuality that privilege the authentic from the inauthentic (ie the ‘confused’ or ‘experimental’ sexual experience from the ‘genuine’ sexual identity).

Im Zuge von Globalisierungsprozessen verlieren territoriale Begrenzungen von Nationalstaaten gegenüber transnationalen Systemzusammenhängen zunehmend an Bedeutung. In der Nutzung neuer Informations-, Kommunikations-und Transporttechnologien konstituieren sich grenzüberschreitende Formen politischer Beziehungen, wirtschaftlicher Unternehmen sowie komplexer Migrationsrealitäten (vgl. Pries 2002, 2008). Jene transnationalen Verflechtungszusammenhänge stellen homogenisierende und separierende Kulturkonzepte infrage, die von einer insel- oder kugelartigen Verfasstheit von Kulturen ausgehen (Welsch 2000, 334). Vor diesem Hintergrund gewinnt auch im erziehungswissenschaftlichen Diskurs der Transkulturbegriff zunehmend an Bedeutung, der für die Hybridisierung und Vermischung zeitgenössischer Kulturen sensibilisiert (vgl. Göhlich et al. 2007: 24). Die dem interkulturellem Denken lange inhärente dichotome Unterscheidung zwischen Fremd-und Eigenkultur scheint in dieser Perspektive immer weniger in der Lage, Migrationsrealitäten angemessen zu beschreiben. Gleichwohl werden jedoch insbesondere Migranten aus muslimischen Herkunftskontexten nach wie vor als „anders“ markiert und jenes unterstellte Anderssein vornehmlich an deren geschlechtlich-sexuellen Lebensweisen festgemacht, die sich durch eine vermeintlich besonders ausgeprägte Orientierung an kulturell und religiös begründeten Traditionen auszeichnen. Erkenntnisse um Modernitäten und transnationale Identitäten werden demgegenüber selten auf muslimische Herkunftsund Migrationkontexte bezogen (vgl. Potts/Kühnemund 2009).

The Canadian government maintains an international reputation of upholding the rights of its queer citizens. However, its attitude toward the rights of queer migrants remain ambiguous. Queer migration is the movement of individuals within countries or across borders who do not fit into the dominant category of heterosexual migrants. While Canada’s treatment of queer migrants has seen significant improvements int the past sixty years, analysis of the migration of same-sex couples and refugee claims based on sexuality demonstrates that immigration policy remains biased against queer migrants. Examination of current events in Canadian migration policy further emphasizes the mixes messages that Citizenship and Immigration Canada is sending to queer migrants. This paper demonstrates that such policies result in queer migrants faced with multiple conflicting identities. Overall, analysis of Canadian immigration policy shows that it remains rooted in heteronormative assumptions.

The most resounding expression of the truly unprecedented mobilizations of migrants throughout the United States in 2006 was a mass proclamation of collective defiance:  ¡Aquí Estamos, y No Nos Vamos!  [Here we are, and we’re not leaving!].  This same slogan was commonly accompanied by a still more forcefully incorrigible rejoinder:  ¡Y Si Nos Sacan, Nos Regresamos! [… and if they throw us out, we’ll come right back!].  It is quite striking and, as this essay contends, not merely provocative but genuinely productive to note the affinity between the crucial articulation of this radically open-ended politics of migrant presence with the similarly abject and profoundly destabilizing politics of queer presence.  In a manner remarkably analogous to the slogan, “We’re here, we’re queer, get used to it!”, the dynamic enunciation of these phrases in the context of the mass mobilizations of migrants asserted an irreducible spirit of irreverence and disaffection for state power. Both gestures unreservedly and unapologetically assert not only their irreversible presence, furthermore, but also uphold the intractable challenge of their own intrinsic incorrigibility.