Challenging the visibility paradigm: Tracing ambivalences in lesbian migrant women’s negotiations of sexual identity

Abstract

In this article, I want to illuminate a more diverse image of lesbian lives in the Nordic region than what is often assumed through Western-centric notions of the global queer community and of "out and proud" visibility. Moving beyond dichotomous divisions between visibility and invisibility, I approach in/visibility as an ambivalent, ambiguous, and performative concept. My fieldwork data illuminate that non-heterosexual migrant women in this context do not primarily subscribe to a so-called "Western" visibility paradigm. I analyze how non-heterosexual migrant women, primarily Muslim, exercise ownership of their sexual identities and how they negotiate the degree to which their romantic and sexual relations become-or do not-points of discussion. As these women were involved in multi-layered negotiations in relation to their families, queer communities, and nations, their positionings in relation to the visibility paradigm differed. However, on a general level, their positionings could be interpreted as simultaneously in and out of the closet, or neither in nor out. These ambivalences and ambiguities, I suggest, illuminate the need to challenge the visibility/invisibility divide, and highlight the importance of paying attention to multiple, context-specific, and intersecting forms of power. Drawing on these discussions, I propose the need to rethink notions of community, family, and home within a framework of queer livability.

Tensions and Ambivalences of Pride Politics in Uncertain Times

“…In these dynamics, homotolerance is typically promoted as a national value, while homophobia is projected onto racialized people and migrant populations (Stubberud, Akin & Bang Svendsen 2019;Haritaworn 2015). These complexities give rise to "impossible and un-imaginable" subjects, such as non-heterosexual Muslim migrant women (Gopinath 2005, 16) -an unintelligible position which illustrates the problematic dynamics that make certain subjects simultaneously hyper-visible and TENSIONS AND AMbIVALENCES Of PrIDE POLITICS IN UNCErTAIN TIMES λ 15 invisible (Liinason 2020). Moreover, in other contexts, such as Serbia (Bilić 2016) or Russia (Stella 2015), visibility may have negative consequences for the LGBTI+ community through increasing exposure to hate crime.…”