Queer Refugees in Queer Utopias – Page 2 – Inclusions and Exclusions

Comparative analyses and EGSC conference

by Thomas Brorsen Smidt

Members of the Queer Refugee Research Network, or QUEEN, are jointly working on a comparative analysis of the protection of SOGIE asylum seekers across the Nordic region, concerning the countries of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden. Looking at how laws, regulations and practices formulate and execute the right to protection from prosecution based on sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression. To access relevant information an interview was conducted by Linda Sólveigar with two members of UTL in Iceland, in May of this year. The work on the article is still ongoing, but several members of the group will participate in the 6th European Geographies of Sexualities Conference (EGSC) in Cádiz, 14-16 September 2022. As participants in the roundtable “The ‘exceptional’ Nordic realms? Regulation of sexual and gender borders through legal and institutional approaches to SOGIE asylum claims” where the comparative analyses will be discussed.

Our researchers

Linda: Our field researcher in Iceland

by Thomas Brorsen Smidt

Linda Sólveigar- og Guðmundsdóttir is a doctoral candidate in anthropology at the University of Iceland and a researcher at the RIKK Institute, in the project Queer Refugees in Queer Utopias: Inclusions and Exclusions. Her PhD project discusses queer migrations to Iceland from the Global South, Global North and Central and Eastern Europe, in terms of the politics of belonging as well as experiences of the affective relationality of (un)belonging, regarding migrants’ ethnic community, the queer community and the wider Icelandic society. Linda identifies i.e., as demifemale and neuroqueer, and has a BA in sociology from the University of Iceland and MA in sociology from City University of London.

Linda is the project’s field researcher in Iceland and is responsible for conducting interviews with SOGIE asylum seekers and refugees with diverse legal statuses. Interviews with professionals in the asylum system in Iceland, in roles of social support in municipality social services and NGO services and advocacy groups, in collaboration with Guðbjörg Ottósdóttir the principal investigator. She further is responsible for the comparative analysis with an ongoing research on SOGIE refugees’ experiences in the Netherlands.

International Collaboration

QUEEN – The Queer Refugee Research Network

by Thomas Brorsen Smidt

On October 11-12, 2019 the GRÓ GEST programme at the University of Iceland launched a two-day workshop at the Nordic House in Reykjavik with the explicit goal of bringing together experts from all the Scandinavian countries to discuss the prospects of collaborating on research related to SOGIE refugees. At the end of the workshop, different research collaborations across the Nordic region were established, including the official launch of The Queer Refugee Research Network, or QUEEN.

The goal of QUEEN is to strengthen international scholarly communities in a way that will address challenges of SOGIE refugee research at an international level. The workshop was organized by the GRÓ GEST Programme on behalf of the University of Iceland and the University of Oslo, as members of the ReNEW research hub. The workshop was supported by the Nordic Council of Ministers and ReNEW. In 2019, QUEEN received additional funding from ReNEW to carry out a collaborative writing workshop with the goal of pursuing on-going cooperation in the context of a joint publication comparing Nordic policies on queer refugee and asylum. The brunt of the writing process for the planned knowledge output was set to take place at a two-day workshop at the University of Oslo in the first half of 2021 but was postponed to January of 2022 due to COVID19. Scholars from Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden are now currently working on an academic article comparing the legal frameworks around asylum adjudication for SOGIE refugees in the Nordic region.

In 2020, the RIKK received funding through the Icelandic Research Fund for the project Queer Refugees in Queer Utopias: Inclusions and Exclusions. For this project, the QUEEN network was expanded to include several Icelandic scholars but was also extended beyond the Nordic region to the Netherlands in order to carry out comparative research on the two countries that are broadly viewed as exceptionally queer friendly.

Our researchers

Guðbjörg Ottósdóttir is principal investigator

by Thomas Brorsen Smidt

Guðbjörg is principal investigator in this research project. She is an associate professor in social work at the faculty of social work, University of Iceland. Her research area has focused on migration and settlement. She identifies as a cis lesbian. Amongst the projects she has been involved in is research on refugee settlement, migration and disability, formal and informal care in refugee and asylum-seeking families and research focusing on experiences of settlement amongst children in migrant and refugee families in Iceland. Guðbjörg has a previous professional background as a social worker in the UK, Iceland, Canada in areas of welfare and social support with adults, children, migrants and refugees and LGBTQ+ people.

Our researchers

Árdís: Our field researcher in Greece and Italy

by Thomas Brorsen Smidt

Árdís K. Ingvars is an adjunct in Sociology and a researcher at the RIKK Institute, at the University of Iceland. Currently she is focusing on the experiences of queer refugees who are deported from the Nordic states to Italy and Greece on the Dublin grounds. She is, furthermore, associated with the Centre for Gender Studies at Karlstad University where she follows refugee activist from a previous study in Greece, as they un-settle in Germany.

Árdís is the project’s field researcher and is responsible for conducting interviews with SOGIE refugees that have been deported via the Dublin convention to Greece and Italy. The intent of this part of the project is to investigate social experiences of reception, integration and deportation of SOGIE refugees. Our overall aim to improve policies, increase acceptance of diverse queer experiences, and procure an interactive online information site, for queer refugees.

In the past, Árdís has published the following research:

Proactive reciprocity: educational trajectories reclaimed through patterns of care. In M. Inhorn and L. Volk (eds), (Un)Settling Middle Eastern Refugees: Regimes of Exclusion and Inclusion in the Middle East, Europe, and North America (p.149-165). Berghahn Series on Forced Migration.

Muligheder for arbeidsinkludering: Perspektiver fra Island [e. Opportunities for work inclusion: perspectives of people with intellectual disabilities in Iceland] (Co-authored with Stefan Hardonk). In H. Gjertsen, L. Melbøe, H. Hauge (eds), Arbeidsinkludering for personer med utviklingshemming (p. 77-89). Oslo: Universitetsforlaget

Border masculinities: Emergent subjectivities through humanity, morality and mobility. PhD, Sociology, University of Iceland. Reykjavík: University Press.

The Social Butterfly: Hunted Subjectivity and Emergent Masculinities among Refugees. NORMA: International Journal for Masculinity Studies, 14(4), 239-254.

Moral mobility: Emergent Refugee Masculinities among Young Syrians in Athens. (co-authored with Ingólfur V. Gíslason). Men and Masculinities, 21(3), 383-402.

The Research

Briefly about the research

by Thomas Brorsen Smidt

People who flee persecution because of their sexual orientation or gender identity and expression (SOGIE) constitute a particularly vulnerable group of migrants. This project aims to create new relevant knowledge that will address gaps in existing research and help improve policies and practices on this issue in Iceland; a country that is broadly perceived to be one of the most queer-friendly nations on earth. To do this, more knowledge on how SOGIE refugees experience settlement, reception and support from both the Icelandic asylum system, municipal social services and NGO’s and advocacy groups, and their own diasporas is needed. It is also becoming increasingly important to know more about how digital and social media plays a role in these processes. Researchers in social work, anthropology, sociology and gender studies will utilize engaged ethnography to carry out and analyze 40-50 in-depth interviews with four different stakeholder groups: SOGIE refugees, professionals in the asylum system in Iceland, professionals in municipality social services and professionals and volunteers in NGO services and advocacy groups. Drawing on an established international research network, the project also seeks to compare experiences of SOGIE refugees in respectively Iceland and the Netherlands to further develop the theoretical framework around the concept of ‘queer utopias.’