Identity, Refugeeness, Belonging: Experiences of Sexual Minority Refugees in Canada (original) (raw)
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Becoming Queer Here: Integration and Adaptation Experiences of Sexual Minority Refugees in Toronto
Refuge: Canada's Journal on Refugees, 2013
Since the early 1990s Canada has become a primary destination for individuals who make refugee claims on the basis of sexual orientation persecution. However, until recently, there was little research focusing on this growing component of Canadian urban queer communities and their experiences of the refugee claim process, and their integration and adaptation to Canadian society. This paper, based on interviews with lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) refugee claimants and participation in LGBT newcomer support groups in Toronto, explores the formal and informal processes, spaces and practices through which LGBT refugee claimants learn about the Canadian nation-state, citizenship and queer identities and communities, and in so doing enter a space/moment of becoming a ‘becoming’ refugee as they learn the social, cultural, and bureaucratic processes and norms of the Canadian refugee apparatus.
Refugee Queerings: Sexuality, Identity and Place in Canadian Refugee Determination
Over the past decade, the Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB) of Canada has granted asylum to several thousand refugee claimants on the basis of sexual orientation. To receive refugee status, claimants must demonstrate "membership in a particular social group" - homosexuals - and a future likelihood of persecution for this reason. Drawing from interviews, media and government texts, and observation of refugee determination hearings, I examine the geographical imaginations shaping asylum decision-making, and consider how identity and place are articulated and assessed in refugee determination proceedings. Often predicated upon essentialized, heteronormative and ethnocentric representations of sexuality and space/place, analyses of sexual orientation-based asylum cases must be queered in the interests of promoting a more just and humane refugee system. I contend that the scale of the body, as well as differences of gender, sexuality, race, nationality, and class, should be foregrounded in considering the security of sexual dissidents.
Speak Out! Structural Intersectionality and Anti-Oppressive Practice with LGBTQ Refugees in Canada
Canadian Social Work Review Vol 30, N 2, 2013
Abstract: This article aims to contribute to social work scholarship about LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, and queer) migrants by drawing from a community- based research project about the experiences of queer and trans refugees living in Canada. We aim to explore the findings from this project by employing critical intersectionality analysis, with a particular focus on structural intersectionality. This intersectional analysis will be linked with key aspects of queer, trans, and critical race theory, in order to reveal the ways heteronormativity, cisnormativity, and processes of racialization shape and organize the everyday lives of queer andtrans refugees. In addition, we will explore the implications of the findings and analysis, for those providing services and/or engaging in community organizing with queer and trans people with refugee experiences. Our aim is to draw from and synthesize the perspectives of the social workers and community organizers interviewed for this project, in order to introduce an anti-oppressive practice model for supporting queer and trans refugees in Canada.
Excerpt: "In Real Queer?, anthropologist David Murray recounts and analyzes how SOGI refugee claimants learn to navigate the complex refugee determination system in Canada. Murray observes how SOGI claimants learn to be LGBT in ways that are legible in the Canadian legal context to those deciding the claims—namely, refugee board members. Board members’ perceptions of what it is to be authentically LGBT are shaped by cultural understandings that may not align with the diverse backgrounds shaping the identities of refugee claimants. This diversity is illustrated through the stories of claimants (drawn from interviews), introduced in the first chapter and traced through the conclusion. Interview data are complemented by Murray’s selfreflexive participant-observation as a volunteer in SOGI refugee support organizations, and observation of Immigration and Refugee Board hearings."
Issue 19: Up/Rooted: Gender, Sexuality and Refuge in Canada
2021
International Migration Research Centre IMRC www.imrc.ca Affairs, Waterloo, Ontario, which explored challenges and opportunities for people arriving from refugee experiences in the Kitchener-Waterloo and Cambridge region. Methodology The workshop consisted of 23 participants, from a range of community organizations working with refugees in the Kitchener-Waterloo and Cambridge region. Community members, persons with refugee backgrounds, researchers, and students came together to engage in a dialogue on gender, sexuality and the experiences of resettlement in Canada. The first phase of the workshop began with an inductive exercise in 'naming the issues' where participants discussed the broader contexts around refugee resettlement and integration in the Kitchener-Waterloo and Cambridge region. The second phase used the World Café conversation strategy to create a living network of collaborative conversations 3 to discuss particular challenges to the everyday realities of refugees settled in the Kitchener-Waterloo and Cambridge municipalities, and best practices within four broad themes: (1) Health and wellness; (2) Families; (3) Social protection and economic security; and (4) Communities and identities. The third phase of the workshop was a roundtable discussion on gaps in knowledge and opportunities and policy recommendations; the Sli.do polling platform was utilized as an interactive tool. The following findings and policy recommendations are the result of our work (deep conversations) during the workshop. Policy Context Who is seeking refuge in Canada? The diversity of countries that produce refugees reflect a historical trajectory of international crises
Liberation Nation? Queer Refugees, Homonationalism and the Canadian Necropolitical State
REMHU: Revista Interdisciplinar da Mobilidade Humana, 2020
This paper presents an overview of the Canadian state’s refugee determination processes for persons lodging asylum claims in Canada on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity expression (SOGIE). Canada has an international reputation for being a welcoming nation to SOGIE (as well as other categories of) refugees, a reputation that is much promoted by the Canadian government and mainstream media. However, in my ethnographic research with SOGIE refugee claimants navigating the Canadian refugee determination process, I reveal that claimants must quickly learn how to construct an ‘authentically’ gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender narrative that meets refugee adjudicators’ standards of credibility, or risk being identified as a ‘fake’ refugee, and thus face incarceration and/or deportation. I argue that sexuality now forms a crucial component of the nation-state’s gate-keeping apparatus, with uneven effects for queer migrants.
Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity and the Refugee Determination Process in Canada
2013
Paper prepared for the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada in support of a presentation made to the Board members on sexual orientation, gender identity and the refugee determination process. The paper reviews developments and issues specific to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered refugees and the Canadian inland refugee determination process.