How Context Matters: Change and Persistence of Homophobic Attitudes among Cameroonian Migrants in Switzerland

Abstract

Debates on human rights in recent years have brought to the fore stark fault lines between African countries, where societal intolerance towards homosexuality is prevalent, and Western countries, which hold more tolerant views towards homosexuality. As contention rages around African identity and homosexuality, one interesting question calls for attention: how do the attitudes of Africans towards homosexuality evolve—or not—when they migrate from their home context to a more open society where homosexuality is widely accepted? This study draws on Herek’s ‘attitudes toward lesbians and gay men scale’ (ATLG) to investigate homophobia among Cameroonians at home compared to Cameroonian migrants in Switzerland and uses in-depth interviews to understand the reasons for any change in or persistence of attitudes. Survey data shows that Cameroonian migrants in Switzerland portray significantly less homophobia compared to Cameroonians living at home. Qualitative analysis identified four factors that contributed to change in attitudes among Cameroonian migrants: (i) experiencing racial prejudice and xenophobia prompted self-reflection about their own prejudices towards others; (ii) witnessing, first-hand, the huge infrastructure and development gap between their host and home country exposed anti-homosexuality politics back home as a needless distraction from actual development priorities; (iii) greater opportunities to meet and interact with gay people in the host country challenged long-held home-grown stereotypes about homosexuality; and (iv) non-discrimination standards and codes of conduct in the workplace in the host country encouraged conformity and shifts towards greater tolerance.