Conference Sessions

It is widely acknowledged that gender and sexuality are integral in the processes of migration and in migration outcomes. Three papers presented in this session illuminate the complex ways in which gender and sexuality interact and influence migration. The first paper reveals how networks mediate how intimate relationships and sexuality shape the integration assets and behaviours of 60 opera singers, mostly from the Soviet Union. However, the most difficult problem for the informants of this study is the establishment of rapport with lower-level intermediaries rather than with more influential network actors. The second and third papers use queer migration scholarship with the following objectives. One paper disentangles gender and sexuality using data from 50 skilled Chinese LGBTQ + migrants and investigates the multi-relational dynamics associated with transnational relationships. Another paper investigates sexuality and the organization of economic, social, and political remittances, using data collected from Haiti and from the Haitian diaspora. The remaining paper in this session focuses on the variability associated with the number of siblings on abortion attitudes in interaction with generation status and the frequency of border crossings.

This session highlights diverse topics, but each introduces new issues that are likely to stimulate future research; each paper also introduces alternative sources of data.  The first paper continues the theme of integration but concentrates on how children struggle to integrate into the Quebec school system. A novel feature of this study is the use of multifaceted data on parents and on their parents, thus enabling the struggles perceived not only by children but also as perceived by their parents.  A second paper, on the integration of migration in small and medium Canadian centers (SMsTRAs) utilizes a multilevel framework resting on the roles of culture and incorporating local context and multilevel governance. A third paper investigates what constitutes and reinforces the precarious irregular migration of Afghan migrants who experience the “game” associated with illegal border crossings. The final topic concentrates on Chinese immigrant seniors and develops a theoretical framework through which to understand how these seniors actively practice volunteering activities and cultural capital as strategies to navigate into the local society.

Non-cisheteronormative migrants to Canada face complex, intersectional vulnerabilities as they pursue place-making and belonging, while gender and sexual alterities intersecting with race, ethnicity, class, and sociopolitical status can increase marginalization, economic insecurity, and sociocultural exclusion. Papers in this session focus on the experiences of sexual orientation, gender identity, expression, and sex characteristics (SOGIESC) refugees and other im/migrants as they navigate processes of refuge and settlement. This includes accessing social welfare services, navigating socioeconomic and political precarity, and sociological analysis of border and social policy regimes. Papers also foreground queer/trans/non-binary relationalities, kinships, community re/creation, and belonging.

Non-cisheteronormative migrants to Canada face complex, intersectional vulnerabilities as they pursue place-making and belonging, while gender and sexual alterities intersecting with race, ethnicity, class, and sociopolitical status can increase marginalization, economic insecurity, and sociocultural exclusion. Papers in this session focus on the experiences of sexual orientation, gender identity, expression, and sex characteristics (SOGIESC) refugees and other im/migrants as they navigate processes of refuge and settlement. This includes accessing social welfare services, navigating socioeconomic and political precarity, and sociological analysis of border and social policy regimes. Papers also foreground queer/trans/non-binary relationalities, kinships, community re/creation, and belonging.

From Bergman and Montgomery’s Joyful Militancy: “The state is a social relationship; a certain way of people relating to one another. It can be destroyed by creating new social relationships” (p. 49, 2017). As political systems of white-supremacy, capitalism, settler-colonialism, and heteropatriarchy fuel ecological, political, and genocidal crises, we must critique our relational systems and their roles in our lives. This session presents work on SOGI refugees’ navigation of the UK refugee claimant process; Crip and Mad content notes on collective voicing; and the tension of settler kinships with the more-than-human, to explore new/old relationalities and their generative possibilities.