Zisakou, ‘Feeling Queer in Translation’, 2025

Sophia Zisakou, ‘Feeling Queer in Translation: Credibility and (dis)order in the Asylum Process’, Social Text, 2025

Abstract

This article discusses the interweaving of queerness, affect and translation in the asylum process, focusing on the role of legal representatives. Through 16 semi-structured interviews with asylum lawyers in Greece, it explores their collaborative work with queer asylum seekers in preparing a “credible” account. Approaching legal preparation as a process of translating applicants’ emotions into what is legible and recognisable by the authorities, it critically addresses translation not only as a mode of straightening queerness and linear compliance with authorities’ expectations, but also as a (dis)orderly affective space and a fragmented temporality where unpredictable queer stories can be told, performed and (possibly) become audible. Reflecting on the performativity of (dis)order, this article argues that translation constitutes a site of potentiality for queerness not only oriented towards the future, but, through the embodied liminality of (un)becoming queer, it suggests a queer future in the present