New mobilities across the lifecourse: a framework for analysing demographically-linked drivers of migration

Migration, along with fertility and mortality, is one of the fundamental drivers of population change. Taking the lifecourse as the central concern, the authors set out a theoretical framework and define some key research questions for a programme of research that explores how the linked lives of mobile people are situated in time-space within the economic, social and cultural structures of contemporary society. Drawing on methodologically innovative techniques, these perspectives can offer conceptually significant and policy relevant insights into the changing nature and meanings of migration across the lifecourse

Writing Out Otherness

“Writing Out Otherness” is inspired by dancers, their journeys to identity, which are the result of who they are, their bodies AND where they are located in discourse, and in global markets. I stage crises of alterity, of the discomforts of participant-observation, of dichotomizing gazes, of performing pluralities of Asianness from within the glass walls of Euro-American dance discourse. Can one theorize about dance without betraying dancers? By what theories are we restraining performers, even in those writings that valorize resistance and interventions? How may the other, redefine himself or herself and be heard? How do we write non-violently so that identities can continue to travel amidst moving spaces, between cultures, persons, theories and theatres. One might call for a profound epistemological shift in re-valuing the links between senses, language, and receptors. But I plead that writings on dance disassociate from any singular foundational logic, and engage with the ways that writing is itself an activity, and like movement systems and the performance of identity, writing is always contingent on the temporal, socio-economic, geo-cultural deep structures

Nonhuman empires

The themed section “Nonhuman Empires” contributes to a critique of anthropocentrism in the field of imperial history. It reveals the variety of ways in which the historical trajectories of nonhuman animals and empires both intersected and informed one another. Beyond merely rehabilitating nonhuman themes in conversations about imperial history, it provides a platform for rethinking both nonhumans and empires as they are envisioned conventionally in the historiography. This introductory article begins by situating this special section as a conversation between science studies and animal studies, on the one hand, and the historiography of empires, on the other. It then suggests ways to reconceptualize agency, subjects, nonhumans, and empire by combining certain shared concerns of subaltern studies and actor-network theory. Finally, it emphasizes the need to integrate postcolonial critiques with emerging scholarship about the posthuman

Un/Convention(al) Refugees: Contextualizing the Accounts of Refugees Facing Homophobic or Transphobic Persecution

Propelled by fear of violence and flight from stigma, impelled by desire for connection and belonging, the movements of people whose sexualities or genders defy and offend norms cover a complex spatial, social, and psychological terrain. This paper presents partial findings of a critical qualitative inquiry conducted in partnership with Rainbow Refugee Committee, a community organization that supports and advocates with Queer, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans (LGBTQ) and HIV-positive refugee claimants/ migrants. This inquiry into how queer refugees engage in settlement comprised participation in Rainbow Refugee Committee and narrative interviews with LGBTQ refugee claimants and refugees, as well as interviews with service providers, community organizers, and lawyers. This paper explores how pre-settlement experiences conditioned possibilities for safety and belonging through refugee protection. While seeking refugee protection, queer refugees are evaluated against expected narratives of refugee flight and of LGBT identity. This paper reflects on the unconventionality of queer refugees’ accounts in relation to these expectations. Queer refugees settling in Canada recounted surviving persecution by dis/avowing their desires, distancing/ taking on available identities, avoiding/seeking out others, and conforming/escaping. They pursued mixed, often precarious, migration trajectories constrained by tightening migration controls and the relative obscurity of refugee protection for sexual or gender-based persecution. In their hearings, they struggled with and against Western cultural narratives of sexual and gender identities, coming out, and gender dysphoria. Interview excerpts highlight relational agencies in claimants’ engagements with the refugee system.Propulsés par la crainte de la violence et la fuite de la stigmatisation, poussés par le désir de connexion et d’appartenance, les mouvements de personnes dont les sexualités ou les genres sont un défi ou une offense aux normes couvrent un terrain complexe spatial, social et psychologique. Cet article présente les résultats partiels d’une enquête critique qualitative menée en partenariat avec Rainbow Refugee Committee, un organisme communautaire qui soutient et défend les demandeurs d’asile/migrants lesbiennes, gays, bisexuels, transgenres, queer (LGBTQ) et séropositifs. Cette enquête sur la façon dont les réfugiés queer s’engagent dans la migration comprend des entretiens du Rainbow Refugee Committee et des interviews narratifs de l’auteur avec des demandeurs d’asile et des réfugiés LGBTQ ainsi que des entrevues avec des prestataires de services, organisateurs communautaires et avocats. L’auteure étudie comment les expériences pré-migratoires ont conditionné les possibilités en matière de sécurité et d’appartenance à travers la protection des réfugiés. En cherchant asile, les réfugiés queersont évalués en fonction de récits attendus sur la fuite des réfugiés et l’identité LGBT. L’auteure offre une réflexion sur l’aspect non conventionnel des récits des réfugiés queer par rapport à ces attentes. Les réfugiés queer qui s’ établissent au Canada disent avoir survécu à la persécution en dés/avouant leurs désirs, en fuyant ou en revêtant des identités disponibles, en évitant ou en recherchant autrui, et en se conformant / s’échappant. Ils ont poursuivi des trajectoires migratoires mixtes, souvent précaires, contraints par le renforcement des contrôles migratoires et l’obscurité relative de la protection des réfugiés de la persécution en raison de leur sexe ou de leur genre. Dans leurs auditions, ils se sont battus avec et contre les discours culturels occidentaux sur les identités sexuelles et de genre, le coming out et la dysphorie de genre. Des extraits d’entrevues mettent en évidence les intermédiaires relationnels dans les engagements des demandeurs d’asile avec le système des réfugiés