Jamel Buhari: ‘Queer migration is intertwined with other reasons for leaving’
image: Elif Kırankaya
Those who apply for asylum at the Immigration and Naturalisation Service (IND) are often asked about their main reason for migration. This process puts asylum seekers in a specific category, while their experiences are often much more complex and multifaceted. With his research on queer migration, PhD candidate Jamel Buhari shows how complex the reality is.
‘In Europe, Africa is generally regarded as a homophobic continent,’ says Buhari, whose research focuses on queer migration from sub-Saharan Africa since the 1980s. ‘If you are queer or trans there, you would have to migrate.’ The reality is, of course, more nuanced.
Migration within the continent
‘Many African countries have had legislation since colonial times, in most cases banning sex between men,’ says Buhari. 'In recent years, you see on the one hand that in Uganda, Tanzania and Ghana, for example, attempts have been made to further tighten anti-LHBTI+ legislation. This often happens under the influence of conservative, Christian groups from the United States, for instance, that insist on family values and rigid norms around sexuality and gender. In doing so, they influence the local narrative, with varying outcomes.'
On the other hand, there are also countries (such as Botswana and Namibia) where colonial legislation has recently been abolished, and other countries that have never had anti-LHBTI+ legislation. Partly because of this, in Africa, as with other forms of migration, much of the movement takes place within the region. ‘In Europe we sometimes overlook these flows,’ says Buhari, ‘but recent literature shows that South Africa and Kenya, for example, are popular destinations for queer migrants from other African countries, and that there are growing queer refugee communities there, often from neighbouring countries. There is also a lot of internal migration, with big cities, for example, being attractive to queer individuals and people finding or creating their communities there, even in contexts of anti-LHBTI+ repression.
Communities
Queer communities in any event play an important role in queer migration, according to Buhari. 'With other migrant groups, you see that people often move to countries where they already know people, for instance because family members have gone before them, or where there are already large diaspora communities from their countries of origin. LGBT+ migrants, on the other hand, sometimes seem to avoid those kinds of networks. I therefore see that queer migrants are often part of other kinds of networks, often also reinforced by developments in digital technologies. These kinds of transnational queer networks play a major role in influencing people's migration choices, the routes they take and the communities they form.'
In practice, you see that migrants of colour sometimes find it difficult to find their place in such a predominantly white queer community. Buhari: ‘They face racism and other forms of exclusion, for example. In response, I see queer people with refugee backgrounds setting up organisations of their own to offer queer newcomers support and a safe community in the Netherlands. For example, there are now several queer African refugee organisations and collectives in the Netherlands aimed specifically at queer African and Caribbean migrants.'
Eurocentric view
The story of an unhappy queer migrant flourishing in a ‘free’ Europe is therefore too one-sided, Buhari stresses. 'There is of course specific anti-queer discrimination and violence that queer people can be victims of, driving some to migrate in search of a safer existence. At the same time, there is little awareness of the forms of marginalisation that queer migrants experience in a Dutch context, something that is often highlighted in the personal stories of the people I interviewed.
‘Furthermore, I see that migration motives are often the result of several factors and it is sometimes a little too simplistic to reduce this only to sexual orientation or gender identity. For many of the people I spoke to for my research, multiple factors played a role in their decision to migrate. The IND procedure is designed that way because they want to put you in one category you and then they keep testing you on that narrative, often within Eurocentric assessment frameworks. This kind of categorisation leaves little room for the complexity of human existence. This says more about the Eurocentric view of those conducting the interviews than about migrants‘ stories, and it ignores the stratification and multifaceted nature of their experiences.’