Weima, Book Review of ‘Real Queer?’, 2017
- Category: Literature
- Source: Academic
- Subject: Sexual Orientation/Sexuality, Gender Identity, Refugee/Asylum
- Place: Americas, Other
- Year: 2017
- URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/cag.12374
Yolanda Weima, Book Review of ‘Real Queer? Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Refugees in the Canadian Refugee Apparatus’, The Canadian Geographer / Le Geographe canadien 2017, 61: e45-e46
Abstract
“In Real Queer?, anthropologist David Murray recounts and analyzes how SOGI refugee claimants learn to navigate the complex refugee determination system in Canada. Murray observes how SOGI claimants learn to be LGBT in ways that are legible in
the Canadian legal context to those deciding the claims—namely, refugee board members. Board members’ perceptions of what it is to be authentically
LGBT are shaped by cultural understandings that may not align with the diverse backgrounds shaping the identities of refugee claimants. This diversity is illustrated through the stories of claimants (drawn from interviews), introduced in the first
chapter and traced through the conclusion. Interview data are complemented by Murray’s selfreflexive participant-observation as a volunteer in SOGI refugee support organizations, and observation of Immigration and Refugee Board hearings.”