Mole, ‘Queer Russian asylum seekers in Germany’, 2020

Richard Mole, ‘Queer Russian asylum seekers in Germany: Worthy refugees and acceptable forms of harm?’, Refugee Hosts, 2020

Abstract

Western states are often represented as safe-havens for refugees fleeing gender and sexuality-based persecution. However, all too often the credibility of the latter’s testimony hinges on their adhering to specific stereotypes of ‘worthy’ refugees experiencing particular forms of harm. In this post, Prof. Richard Mole provides an extract from his chapter (pp 273-288) in the recently published Refuge in a Moving World Open Access volume edited by Refugee Hosts PI Prof. Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh. Reflecting on the experiences of queer Russian asylum-seekers in Berlin, this post shows how worthiness is often based on the readability of an asylum seeker’s ‘queerness’ and whether or not they have suffered ‘acceptable’ or ‘unacceptable’ forms of homophobic harm.