Proceedings of the Global Conference on Gender Studies
Year: 2024
DOI:
[PDF]
Navigating Between “Characters”: The Plight of Queer Muslim Refugees in Germany
Ronghan Qin
ABSTRACT:
In recent years, the intense discussion on the significance of the intersectionality of immigrants in Germany gives rise to more attention to queer Muslim immigrants. However, scholars have been portraying their immigration experiences in a rather “slanted” way because they invest more attention on the post-immigration experience of queer Muslim refugees instead of focusing on the struggles during the immigration process. Therefore, in this paper, the emphasis is put on the process of immigration for queer Muslim refugees, concentrating on how they present themselves in different sociocultural contexts and how they navigate through these different “characters” to cater to the institutionalized idea of queerness in a Western context. To better elucidate the issue, I apply the theoretical idea of “gender performativity” and self-presentation initiated by Judith Butler and Erving Goffman as my theoretical frameworks. Through these theoretical frameworks and deep analysis of the existing literature and data, we claim that queer Muslim refugees in Germany passively navigate their multiple socio-characters to avoid structured “punishments” conducted on both official and personal levels
keywords: germany; immigration; performativity; queer; refugee