Available open access digitally under CC-BY-NC-ND licence.
What happens to sexual and gender identities when crossing borders under duress?
This book offers an unprecedented account of how forced migration shapes the lives of queer Iranian individuals. Tracing movements from Iran through transition countries to Western resettlement, the book explores how identities are expressed, negotiated, silenced and reimagined along the way. Engaging de/postcolonial theory and participatory methods, the authors centre the voices of non-heterosexual and non-cisnormative Iranians in exile.
This is an essential study for scholars of sexuality, migration and Middle Eastern studies seeking to understand queerness in global displacement.
Table of Contents:
1. Escaping Iran
2. Reframing Queerness: The International Formation of Queer Identity in Iran
3. From the Amrad to ‘The Gay’: The Making of Queer Identity in Iran
4. Methodology and Ethical Issues
5. Language, Queer Vocabularies and Self-Identification
6. External Factors Shaping Queer Iranians’ Gender Identity, Sexual Orientation and Migration Decisions
7. Drawn Into a Legal Web
8. Conclusion
About the Author :
Moira Dustin is Assistant Professor of Law at the University of Sussex.
Nuno Ferreira is Professor of Law at the University of Sussex.
Kamran Matin is Reader in International Relations at the University of Sussex.
Mehran Rezaei-Toroghi was Research Fellow in the School of Law, Politics and Sociology at the University of Sussex (2022–2023).
Isabel Soloaga is a documentary filmmaker, impact producer, and communications strategist.
Review :
‘This is an important and novel contribution to the field of queer migration and beyond. It sheds light on the underexamined experiences of queer Iranians, while also challenging queer migration research.’ Sarah Scuzzarello, University of Sussex
