The Precariousness of Home and Belonging Among Queer Refugees: Using Participatory Photography in Oral Histories in Vancouver, British Columbia

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article explores the relationship between oral history and participatory photography for queer refugees as they create differing affectual and mnemonic relationships to the past and present in experiences of belonging and home. By intertwining oral history interviews with participatory photography by sexual minority refugees, this research interrogates the intimate and ephemeral spaces between narrative and affect, lived realities and “memoryscapes,” and how queer refugees navigate the conflicted and contradictory emotions of home and belonging between time and space. Understanding how queer refugees tell stories about home through oral history and participatory photography allows us not only to understand the social, structural, and material worlds they must navigate as they settle in Canada but also challenge dominant and linear refugee migration narratives in which home is constructed as an endpoint. The shared narratives and participatory photographs address a critical intersection in LGBT refugee research and oral history by expanding our understanding of how queer refugees narrate their migration stories, feelings of belonging, and experiences of home.