CEU eTD Collection (2022); Noureen, Asma: Creating Queer Livable Spaces: Queer Muslims' Use of Education as a Migration Strategy

CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2022
Author Noureen, Asma
Title Creating Queer Livable Spaces: Queer Muslims' Use of Education as a Migration Strategy
Summary My thesis explores the link between education and queer migration and how queer Muslims create queer livable spaces for themselves through educational migration. The research on queer migration has been heavily centered on asylum policies and practices with little research about the alternative methods of migration. Based on 14 in-depth, semi structured interviews and autoethnographic reflections and centering the concepts of livability and queer livable space, my research fills this gap in queer migration studies. It highlights the use of educational opportunities by queer Muslims to migrate from their countries of origin where they are faced with homophobia and/or fear of prosecution to queer friendly locations to create queer livable spaces for themselves. The educational migration allows queer Muslims financial stability and social standing which makes it easier for them to navigate and defy the expectations of marriage and heteronormativity from their families and countries of origin as well as Islamophobia, xenophobia, homophobia, and homonormativity in the countries of migration. In this queer livable space, they are able to maintain familial ties with their biological families, if they wish, while creating new communities, (chosen) families, and a sense of belonging. Developing the concept of queer livable space, I argue that queer livable space that queer Muslims create through educational migration is an alternative as well as resistance to the western notions of queerness and visibility paradigm.
Supervisor Renkin, Hadley Z.
Department Gender Studies MA
Full texthttps://www.etd.ceu.edu/2022/noureen_asma.pdf

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