Elizabeth HESSEK, Université de Montréal, Canada
As the mobility turn continues to influence spatial analysis, migration studies have unsurprisingly grown in scope and importance within the field of geography (King, 2020). Frequently missing from conversations about cross-border mobility is the specific experience of queer migrants seeking resettlement. Migration research often seeks to improve and quicken newcomers’ cultural and economic integration, but it fails to acknowledge the hetero- and cis-normative assumptions intrinsic in integration metrics. Even as countries such as Canada, France, and the USA proactively seek to resettle queer refugees inside their borders, this "homonationalism" belies the countries' queer oppression domestically and abroad (Puar, 2007). The experiences of queer migrants in their countries of resettlement – existing in the intersection of queerphobia and xenophobia - provide a critical analysis of notions of integration. I propose an epistemology that both inserts queer narratives into research on migration experiences and does the work of queering migration studies itself by questioning normative ideals of migrant integration.
Sara Ahmed states, “migration could be described as a process of disorientation and reorientation: as bodies “move away” as well as “arrive” as they reinhabit spaces” (2006, p.9). The reorientation of queer bodies arriving is necessarily influenced by sexual orientation and gender identity as well as race, ethnicity, and migration status. What spaces do queer migrants reinhabit? As homonormative politics in many countries align LGBTQ spaces and people with the state and capital, racialized bodies experience increased policing and containment (Bacchatta, et al. 2018). How do queer migrants build community amid forces of disorientation? What methodologies are researchers using to honor and support these communities without retraumatizing participants (Mekdjian, 2016)? How can these communities unsettle notions of successful integration across migration studies?
Mots clés : Migration|Queer Mobilities|Refugees|Resettlement |Homonationalism
A105113EH