“Coaching” Queer

This article argues that Northern responses to, and recognition of, LGBTQ refugees bind queer organizations in Lebanon and Turkey, which support such refugees, in a state of contradiction. This contradiction is defined both by the failure of Northern LGBTQ rights discourses to account for Southern ways of being queer, but also by the categorical imperative of hospitality, which asks that the “right” refugee appears in line with the moral, political, raced, and gendered assumptions of Northern host states. In recognizing this imperative, this article observes how queer organizations in Lebanon and Turkey navigate this contradiction by simultaneously “coaching” their beneficiaries on how to appear “credible” in line with Northern assumptions about sexual difference, while working to accommodate the alterity of those they support

Reconceptualising and contextualising sexual rights in the MENA region: beyond LGBTQI categories

In recent years, LGBTQI rights have become central to debates around international development, human rights, refugee protection, and diversity. Yet research and experience in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) reveals significant problems with LGBTQI as a way of identifying individuals who do not conform to heterosexual and binary gender norms, in order to support their rights. In this article, we draw on experience of working to advance gender and sexual rights to illustrate the shortcomings of LGBTQI identity categories, and use findings from the Centre for Transnational Development and Collaboration’s (CTDC) four-year programme of research into LGBTQI rights in the MENA region to support our argument further. This research identified major problems in policies and debates on the rights of individuals whose sexual orientation and/or gender identity differs from the norm. In response to this, CTDC has developed a tool to address rights in programme development and advocacy, using a new approach, Sexual Practice and Gender Performance (SPGP), for work in the MENA region

Inclusive LGBTQ+ fieldwork: Advancing spaces of belonging and safety

Increasing everyday levels of LGBTQ+ phobia and other forms of identity-based prejudice reveal the need for systematic attention across the versatile geographic discipline to the belonging and safety of LGBTQ+ field researchers. Through an expanded reflection on Bracken & Mawdsley’s (2004) account "‘Muddy glee’: Rounding out the picture of women and physical geography fieldwork” (Area, 36, pp. 280-286), we consider the major issues – including forms of discrimination, exclusion, and, sometimes, violence – that LGBTQ+ researchers (and more widely fieldworkers engaging LGBTQ+ communities) encounter at different stages of field research. We pursue a critical dialogue with opportunities and limitations provided by field, disciplinary as well as home institutional contexts and practices, including ethics and risk assessments, codes of conduct, and support levels (or rather their deficiencies)