Queering Borders: Negotiating Subjectivities in Kenya's Kakuma Refugee Camp

虽然在非洲大陆同性恋的知名度和接受度方面取得了重要进展，但同性恋生活经常被标记为犯罪和危险的。在54个非洲国家中，有32个国家将同性性行为定为犯罪--其中三个国家被判处死刑--这一事实突出地提醒人们注意这一点。只要各国和社区继续将同性恋者定为犯罪并加以歧视，难民保护就仍然至关重要，而且在许多方面仍然是确保非洲大陆同性恋者和群体权利的唯一途径之一。然而，尽管酷儿申请者可以根据他们的性取向和性别认同和表达(SOGIE)寻求庇护，但通过他们的生活经历使他们的申请合法化的过程构成了几个挑战。尽管联合国难民事务高级专员办事处(难民署)承认，索赔人的经历不一定可以翻译成西方术语，例如，使用“LGBTI”仍然是规范上的可取之处。因此，难民要求的合法性可能取决于他们谈判的能力，并将生活经历转化为可识别的(西方)词典。虽然西方关于性别和性行为的话语目前是理解同性恋难民保护的主要手段，但本文认为，更具情境化的同性恋赋权政治是可能的，在许多情况下，更有效。考虑到这一点，本文旨在通过转移人们对肯尼亚卡库马难民营的关注，来偏向性取向和性别认同的稳定定义。它这样做，是在强调以下论点的指导下进行的：扩大全球南方同性恋难民的经历对于找到应对当前挑战的可行解决方案至关重要。本文的研究方法是定性的，并以肯尼亚卡库马难民营中的酷儿难民的日常经历为指导。研究方法将在设计、利用照片之声、以问题为中心的访谈和焦点小组会议方面采用体验式方法。通过邀请难民通过摄影记录他们的经历，他们可以在表现其主观性方面拥有更大的决策权。。此外，将使用非殖民主义的镜头进行以问题为中心的访谈和焦点小组会议并加以分析。Ngugi、Spivak、Oyewumi和Lugones等人撰写的文本将为如何进行非殖民化研究提供策略。因此，这项研究的目的不仅是认识到性别和性表达的多样性，而且也认识到将同性恋难民的表现概念化的重要性，超越了西方本体论的规范界限。通过这种方式，本文试图提供一幅更复杂的、非殖民主义的抵抗和自我表征的图景，并富有成效地揭示人权话语在处理同性恋难民时的有限范围。关键词：酷儿、移民、难民、非殖民主义思想、南方认识论、欧洲中心论、想象力、本体论、现实主义、社会学。

While important advances have been made towards queer visibility and acceptance on the African continent, queer lives are frequently marked as criminal and dangerous. The fact that same-sex sexual activities are criminalized in 32 of the 54 African nations-the death penalty in three-serves as a salient reminder of this. As long as countries and communities continue to criminalize and discriminate against queer persons, refugee protection will thus remain essential and, in many ways, continue to be one of the only ways of ensuring the rights of queer persons and groups on the continent. However, while queer claimants can seek asylum based on their sexual orientation and gender identity and expression (SOGIE), the process of legitimising their claim through their lived experiences poses several challenges. Despite the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees' (UNHCR) acknowledgement that claimants' experiences are not necessarily translatable into western terminology, for example, the use of 'LGBTI' is still normatively preferable. The legitimacy of refugees' claims may thus depend on their ability to negotiate and translate lived experiences into a recognizable (western) lexicon. Whilst the western discourse of gender and sexuality is currently the dominant means through which the protection of queer refugees is understood, this thesis contends that a more contextualised politics of queer empowerment is possible and, in many cases, more effective.With this in mind, this thesis aims to decentre stable definitions of sexual orientation and gender identity, focussing on Kenya's Kakuma Refugee Camp, by shifting attention to how they are lived. It does so, guided by an emphasis on the argument that amplifying the experiences of queer refugees in the global South is vital for finding viable solutions to current challenges. The methodological approach of this thesis is qualitative and guided by the daily experiences of queer refugees in Kenya's Kakuma Refugee Camp. The research methods will be experiential in design, drawing on photovoice, problem-centred interviews, and focus group sessions. By inviting refugees to document their experiences through photography, they could wield greater decision-making power over the representation of their subjectivities. . In addition, both problem-centred interviews and focus group sessions will be conducted and analysed using a decolonial lens. Texts written by Ngugi, Spivak, Oyewumi, and Lugones, amongst others, will provide strategies for how to do decolonial research. The aim of this research is not only to recognise the plurality of gender and sexual expression, therefore, but also to acknowledge the importance of conceptualising representations of queer refugees beyond the normative confines of western ontologies. In this way, this thesis seeks to provide a more complex, decolonial picture of resistance and self-representation and productively expose the limited scope of human rights discourse when addressing queer refugees.KeywordsQueer, Migration, Refugee, decolonial thought, epistemologies of the South, Eurocentrism, imagination, ontology, reality, sociology.