Liberation or Racialization?: Intersectional Perspectives on Central, Eastern, Southeastern European, and Eurasian Queer Migrations

Session Submission Type: Panel

Brief Description

International migration journeys undertaken by queer and non-heterosexual people are often discussed in liberatory terms: queer migrants are expected to find freedom from past homophobia in the countries they move to. This interdisciplinary panel brings together scholars of film, art, literature, sociology, and feminist ethnography to consider an often-overlooked part of the Central, Eastern, Southeastern European and Eurasian (CESEE) queer migrant experience, namely, queer migrants’ encounters with issues of ethnicity, race, racism, xenophobia, and racialization in destination societies. The first paper identifies and examines the interwoven themes of racialized/xenophobic discourse, cinematic queer representation, and eroticization of the Central and East European migrant male body in contemporary British film. The second paper examines the meanings of sexuality, race, and nationalism in the works of queer emigre artist Slava Mogutin. The third paper analyzes post-Soviet queer asylum-seekers' encounters with American racism and their negotiations of their own place in racialized American society. The fourth paper discusses the narratives of Russian queer emigration to Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, considering queer experiences of emigration through a decolonial lens and examining how Russian queer migrants’ narratives reproduce and challenge colonial discourses. By investigating these topics, we hope to complicate the often-reproduced liberatory narratives of queer migration, and to advance an intersectional perspective on queer migrations in and out of CESEE.

Sub Unit

• Gender/LGBTQ Studies

Chair

• Richard Mole, U College London (UK)

Papers

• Un-silencing the Lambs: Slaying the Racialized, Queer CEE Migrant in 'God’s Own Country' - Nicholas Boston, CUNY Lehman College

• The Racialized Exilic Body in Slava Mogutin: A Queer Case Study - Luc Jean Beaudoin, U of Denver

• Post-Soviet LGBTQ+ Immigrants’ Responses to Racialized Hierarchies in the US: Negotiating Immigrant Marginalization and White Privilege - Alexandra Novitskaya, U of Maryland, Baltimore County

• Paradoxes of Marginality: Russian Queer Narratives of Emigration to Central Asia from a Decolonial Perspective - Mariya Levitanus, U of Edinburgh (UK)

Discussant

• Richard Mole, U College London (UK)