Dienstag, 19. Dezember 2023 - 19:00
Framing Queer and Trans African Mobilities: Migration, Asylum, and Diaspora
presentation by B Camminga in english language
Recent years have seen increased scholarly and media interest in the cross-border movements of LGBT persons, particularly those seeking protection in the Global North. While this has helped focus attention on the plight of individuals fleeing homophobic or transphobic persecution, it has also reinvigorated racist tropes about the Global South. In the case of Africa, the expansion of anti-LGBT laws and the prevalence of hetero-patriarchal discourses are regularly cited as evidence of an inescapable savagery. The figure of the LGBT refugee - often portrayed as helplessly awaiting rescue - reinforces colonial notions about the continent and its peoples. Drawing on the diverse case studies from the length and breadth of Africa available in the recently published Queer and Trans African Mobilities (Bloomsbury, 2022), this talk offers an in-depth investigation of LGBT migration on and from the continent. I consider some of the drivers and impacts of displacement linked to sexual orientation or gender identity and challenges regarding why LGBT Africans move, where they are going and what they experience along the way.
B Camminga (they/them) is a fellow at the Institute for Cultural Inquiry, Berlin, and a research associate at the African Centre for Migration & Society, University of the Witwatersrand. They work on issues relating to gender identity and expression on the African continent with a focus on transgender migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers. Their first monograph, Transgender Refugees and the Imagined South Africa, received the 2023 South African Academy of Sciences Emerging Scholars book award, the 2019 Sylvia Rivera Award in Transgender Studies (with Aren Aizura) and honourable mention in the Ruth Benedict Prize for Queer Anthropology. B is co-editor of Beyond the Mountain: Queer Life in Africa's 'Gay Capital' (2019) with Zethu Matebeni, Queer and Trans African Mobilities: Migration, Diaspora, and Asylum (2022) with John Marnell and East African Queer and Trans Displacement (forthcoming) with John Marnell, Barbara Bompani and Kamau Wairuri.
_source_ : message received on 8. Dezember 12 Uhr