Open AccessQueer kinship and the rights of refugee families
Author(s) -
Samuel Ritholtz,
Rebecca Buxton
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
migration studies
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.918
H-Index - 7
eISSN - 2049-5846
pISSN - 2049-5838
DOI - 10.1093/migration/mnab007
Subject(s) - queer , refugee , kinship , argument (complex analysis) , normative , gender studies , inclusion (mineral) , sociology , political science , queer theory , law , biochemistry , chemistry
Over the past decade, the refugee protection regime has supposedly become more inclusive of queer and trans* people. Much literature has focused on the expansion of refugee status determination and the inclusion of LGBTQ asylum seekers. However, there are many areas of refugee policy that remain dependent on cisheteronormative assumptions and therefore exclude the queer and trans* forcibly displaced. This paper considers the concept of ‘the family’ and how it is used and understood in refugee protection. We make the normative argument that queer and trans* family units ought to qualify for refugee family reunion and group status determination. We do so by considering the concept of queer and trans* ‘chosen families’, arguing that these queer articulations of kinship are functionally and morally comparable to cisheteronormative conceptions of the family. We contend that considering the cisheteronormative underpinnings of the family in this way opens up the potential to queer other areas of refugee policy, and therefore paves the way to a more inclusive refugee protection regime.