A/Effective Adjudications: Queer Refugees and the Law

Raj, Senthorun

doi:10.1080/07256868.2017.1341394

Cited by 15 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 11 publications

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“…Yet, this has largely been explored in the context of asylum in the Global North; for instance: many LGBTI refugees perceive learning how to speak and behave in a manner that fits with homonormative narratives as a key strategy to making a successful refugee claim in Canada (Murray, 2014). The work of Akin (2017) investigates similar themes of performativity and authenticity in the adjudication process for LGBTI asylum claimants in Norway, as do the findings of Raj (2017) in Australia, Lewis (2014) in the United Kingdom, and Cantú (2009) in the United States. These accounts, however, underscore the dynamics of power that shape denial and access to safe havens by certain populations.…”

Section: Problematising Protection Discoursementioning

confidence: 99%

UNHCR and LGBTI refugees in Kenya: the limits of ‘protection’

Pincock

2021

Disasters

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This paper problematises the framing and implementation of protection of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex (LGBTI) refugees in Kenya by the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR). Despite increased international attention being paid to them, the extant literature focuses on asylum-seeking at Western borders; there is a dearth of scholarship on LGBTI refugees' experiences in first countries of asylum in the Global South. Building on essential humanitarian governance literature, the paper suggests that how protection is framed by UNHCR, and practical restrictions on the implementation of protection in Kenya, leave LGBTI refugees unsafe. Yet, their own attempts to secure protection, often drawing on the same human rights discourse that UNHCR utilises in its guidance, renders them even less 'protectable' by UNHCR and Kenyan activists. This paper argues for a more critical and contextualised approach to 'protection' as a form of humanitarian assistance, given its place within the broader dynamics of global refugee governance.

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Section: Problematising Protection Discoursementioning

confidence: 99%

UNHCR and LGBTI refugees in Kenya: the limits of ‘protection’

Pincock

2021

Disasters

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“…Having said that, it is important not to require applicants to be out in the past in order to accept that they qualify for international protection, given the sociopolitical circumstances in their country of origin. On the other hand, interrogating applicants on their identity poses fundamental challenges on the part of the case worker since they often adopt westernized notions of gay, lesbian, bisexual and trans identities that erase the specific context where the applicants come from (Abu-Assab et al, 2018; Hertoghs and Schinkel, 2018; Jordan, 2009; Raj, 2017; Tschalaer, 2020).…”

Section: Trans*it Documentary Practice and Contestationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…When asylum claims based on gender identity and gender expression are examined, one must be very cautious about whether Western assumptions and classifications can capture non-Western experiences of gender non-conformity (Abu-Assab et al, 2018; Hertoghs and Schinkel, 2018; Jordan, 2009; Raj, 2017; Tschalaer, 2020). It should be noted though that both the interviewees use globalized English terms to describe their identities in the documentary, which are also broadly used in Greece nowadays as a result of Western influence.…”

Section: Decolonizing Gender Identity In Refugee Lawmentioning

confidence: 99%

Transit*: Transgender and gender nonconforming asylum claimants’ narratives in Greece

Avgeri¹

2021

Sexualities

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In this article, I reflect on two interviews of transgender/gender nonconforming asylum claimants in the broader West. In the Trans*it documentary that my partners and I created, a non-binary person and a transgender woman, Ilios and Christina, interview each other on the difficulties of being a transgender/gender nonconforming asylum applicant in Greece. Greece is an understudied area with huge migration flows at the border of the EU and has no official data for Sexual Orientation Gender Identity asylum claims. The documentary, this article contends, provides a starting point for reflecting on the experiences of transgender/gender nonconforming applicants at the borders of Europe and their transition from their country of origin to the West/Greece, and for importing non-Western migrant subjectivities into our current thinking on sexuality/gender. In particular, I problematize the legal framework of Refugee Status Determination and explore the decolonization of gender identity/expression in refugee law. Finally, I reflect on the process of making the documentary and my attempt to centre the voices of gender nonconforming asylum claimants while minimizing the impact of my gaze as a white Greek researcher in the field. In doing so, this article shows how documentary film can be used as a means to further considerations of gendered normativities of asylum claims in a key, yet understudied, context. It concludes by arguing for a decolonializing approach that questions the normalization of Western standards of gender, and their transgression, in Refugee Status Determination. [Media: see text]

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“…Adopting a queer perspective in migration addresses how the vulnerability of migrants is exacerbated as a result of rigid state-sanctioned identity categories, and how the presence and actions of LGBTQ migrants also trouble and partially transform those same categories and underlying norms (Luibhéid, 2014). In analysing how asylum adjudicators and Court judges struggle with LGBTQ asylum cases, queer can thus be understood as a ‘critical term that refers to practices, pleasures, emotions and identities that “disorient” decision-makers’ (Raj, 2017: 456).…”

Section: Queer Migration and Dublinmentioning

confidence: 99%

Do the Challenges of LGBTQ Asylum Applicants Under Dublin Register With the European Court of Human Rights?

Wieland

Alessi

2020

Social & Legal Studies

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Evidence suggests that Europe’s Dublin Regulation is increasing the precarity of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) asylum applicants. Dublin allocates responsibility for examining asylum claims between EU Member States. The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) guides the obligations of States under Dublin. Increasingly, the ECtHR draws on the concept of vulnerability to frame the experiences of asylum seekers. Vulnerability purportedly functions for the ECtHR as a lens through which the harm experienced by asylum applicants is magnified, enabling it to better recognize human rights violations. Nevertheless, the ECtHR’s vulnerability lens may be distorted by hetero- and cisgender normativity. We explore some implications of the ECtHR’s assumptions for how the vulnerabilities of LGBTQ asylum seekers in Europe under Dublin register with the ECtHR. We suggest that the combined frameworks of intersectional invisibility and layers of vulnerability can improve the ECtHR’s capacity to understand how LGBTQ asylum applicants may be particularly vulnerable under Dublin.

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A/Effective Adjudications: Queer Refugees and the Law

Cited by 15 publications

References 11 publications

UNHCR and LGBTI refugees in Kenya: the limits of ‘protection’

UNHCR and LGBTI refugees in Kenya: the limits of ‘protection’

Transit*: Transgender and gender nonconforming asylum claimants’ narratives in Greece

Do the Challenges of LGBTQ Asylum Applicants Under Dublin Register With the European Court of Human Rights?

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A/Effective Adjudications: Queer Refugees and the Law

Cited by 15 publications

References 11 publications

UNHCR and LGBTI refugees in Kenya: the limits of ‘protection’

UNHCR and LGBTI refugees in Kenya: the limits of ‘protection’

Trans*it: Transgender and gender nonconforming asylum claimants’ narratives in Greece

Do the Challenges of LGBTQ Asylum Applicants Under Dublin Register With the European Court of Human Rights?

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About

Transit*: Transgender and gender nonconforming asylum claimants’ narratives in Greece