Exploring Social Remittances and Transnational Activism Amongst Transgender Refugees

Isabel Soloaga

doi:10.3389/fhumd.2021.675536

Abstract

This paper explores how transgender refugees living in the United Kingdom, Europe and the United States leverage social remittances and transnational ties to advocate for their rights within intolerant receiving countries. Even after migration, their frequent experiences of persecution in so-called “safe” countries often necessitate a continuation of their activism. This study centers on the lived experiences of transgender refugees through a combination of case studies, interviews, and participatory photography. Focusing on three case studies, it analyzes the role of social remittances and transnational ties in the activism of transgender refugees. The results illustrate how transgender individuals build activist networks through interpersonal connections, especially within what research participants described as “chosen families” in receiving countries. Grassroots nonprofit organizations serving transgender refugees prove essential to building this collectivity formation. Such organizations act as loci of activism and allow for safe sharing of lifesaving social remittances to those still living in origin countries. In addition, new technologies, including end-to-end encrypted messaging platforms, allow for the secure one-on-one exchange of ideas and survival practices around gender identity. This sharing creates a ripple effect, leading to the creation of robust transnational networks between transgender activists worldwide. I argue that systemic oppression, racism, and transphobia in receiving countries push transgender refugees, victims of violence worldwide, into roles as activists. By investing in chosen families, participating in nonprofit organizations dedicated to supporting transgender refugees, and sharing their activism worldwide through transnational networks, transgender refugee activists fight to access their fundamental human rights.

Highlights

Alana Eissa fled Malaysia after intolerance of her transgender identity led to multiple attempts on her life, both by strangers and her very own parents
This study offers scholars of migration, politics, and queer theory a new, intimate and often overlooked perspective on transnational activism in today’s world
I take the experiences of Alana Eissa, a Malaysian refugee who lives in London; Alejandra Barrera, a trans woman and refugee in the United States; and Kamel, a Libyan journalist, activist and transgender man living in Italy, as jumping-off points to explore how transgender migrants mobilize social remittances and transnational connections to inform their migration decisions and to assist others like them

Summary

INTRODUCTION

Alana Eissa fled Malaysia after intolerance of her transgender identity led to multiple attempts on her life, both by strangers and her very own parents. Whether in detention centers in the United States, border agents shooting and beating refugees in Croatia, or the continuing police abuses in Calais, prove that the scale of legal violations occurring at the borders of so-called “safe countries” looms large and high (Bochenek, 2017; Oztaskin, 2019; Connelly, 2019) Within this larger picture, the specific positioning of activism amongst transgender refugees provides a unique opportunity to explore the broad reach of social remittances and the transnational networks that they enable. Many authors, including Agamben, argue that the transnational activity of migrants transforms their politics but seriously undermines the (in)coherent logic of the body-state-nation connection that undergirds modern ideas of the nation-state (Ostergaard-Nielsen, 2003; Gleeson, 2019) Holding both unsanctioned mobility and nonconforming gender identities, transgender refugees run against two of the most central alignments by which nation-states control their populations (Gleeson, 2019). By transferring social remittances between countries, new understandings of gender, bodies, and one’s relationship to the state spread rapidly, aided by new technologies such as social media, private messaging channels such as WhatsApp, and the internet

LITERATURE REVIEW

METHODOLOGY

CONCLUSION

ETHICS STATEMENT