Queer Desires. Nuove prospettive per ripensare la migrazione sud asiatica in Italia

This work stems from the need to conceptualize the sphere of queer desire – be it erotic, sexual, or romantic – as a vector of migration, i.e., as a dimension that can, and often does, play a crucial role within contemporary trajectories of transnational mobility. More specifically, the paper applies the aforementioned lens to trajectories of queer migration from South Asia to Italy, by analyzing the experiences and narratives of two SOGI refugees coming from Pakistan and Bangladesh respectively and currently living in Italy. The main purpose of the discussion is to critically rethink the widespread logic that constructs the figure of the refugee as inherently tied to a condition of passive victimization, caused by structural conditions of socioeconomic marginalization, violence, and disenfranchisement, which force them to flee their countries of origin. Even though it wouldn’t be fair to downplay the role that such conditions have in shaping SOGI refugees’ trajectories of mobility toward Europe, this paper argues that it is equally necessary to recognize how queer migratory enterprises are at the same time profoundly pervaded by the force of a romantic and/or sexual desire, which shapes several crucial moments of migration: its conception, the actual journey, and/or the arrival and the new life in the country of destination. Concerning methodology, the article addresses the issue mostly through an ethnographic approach, as it constitutes a preliminary analysis of a small part of the fieldwork data that I have been collecting throughout my doctoral research since January 2023.