The Feeling of Migration: Narratives of Queer Intimacies and Partner Migration

Project

Principal investigator Sara Ahlstedt (REMESO Project Leader), Peo Hansen (Scientifically Responsible)
Description
This dissertation is an ethnographic interview study analyzing narratives of queer partner migration, i.e., a family-tie migration in which one partner of a relationship has migrated in order for the partners to be together, and where the partners queer the migration in the sense that they have a non-normative sexuality and/or gender identity. The purpose is to examine how queer partner migrants and their non-migrating Swedish partners experience the migration process by analyzing what emotions and feelings ‘do’ to the relationship and how emotions and feelings structure the migration process. The study analyzes the work three different emotions – love, loss, and belonging – carry out in these migration processes, and how this work is described in participant narratives. Migrant participants have migrated from different parts of the world (Africa, Europe, Latin America, and North America), making it possible to analyze what emotions and feelings do in this particular migration process from the point of view of nationality and, in particular, proximity to ‘Western-ness,’ race, and language as well as how privileges connected to these positions come to matter in the process.
Year 2010

Taxonomy Associations

Migration processes
Migration consequences (for migrants, sending and receiving countries)
Migration governance
Cross-cutting topics in migration research
Disciplines
Methods
Geographies
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