Vitikainen, ‘Don’t bracket the queers!’, 2025

A. Vitikainen, ‘Don’t bracket the queers! Comment on Patti Lenard’s “Resettling (LGBTQ+) refugees”‘, Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy, 1–9

Abstract

This comment discusses Lenard’s view on the resettling of LGBTQ+ refugees (Ch. 7) and pursues two claims. First, it shows how Lenard’s method, while providing a novel account of the general duties of resettlement, overlooks some specific features of LGBTQ+ refugeehood that are crucial for understanding both the specific contents and grounds for these duties. Second, it demonstrates how some of the reasons for states to select LGBTQ+ refugees for resettlement coincide with some of the grounds for LGBTQ+ resettlement duties thus pointing towards the need to discuss LGBTQ+ refugee admission and integration conjointly. The comment highlights the need to centralize LGBTQ+ experiences in our theorizing of LGBTQ+ resettlement duties, as opposed to discussing them in the abstract – or in brackets – as an illustration of the broader principles of resettlement duties.

Keywords: Duties of resettlement, integration, LGBTQ+ refugees, political theory of refuge, refugee admission