Hijra clapping in a Pigneto gay bar. Exploring everyday accented disruptions of hetero- and homo-normativity in queer migration

Applying the right amount of make-up before appearing in front of the Territorial Commission that will adjudicate your asylum case; recording dancing TikToks in the waiting room of an office of the Municipality of Rome while waiting for your brand-new I.D. card; performing the hijra-clap after attending a waacking show in a gay bar of Rome’s notoriously queer-friendly neighborhood of Pigneto: these are only some of the disruptions of the hetero- and homo-normative expectations which structure both spaces of Italian migration management and of lgbt+ sociality, as enacted by Atif (pseudonym), a young self-identified gay/she-male Pakistani refugee living in Rome. On the basis of a two-year long research period I spent walking, eating, chatting, and, quite simply, being with Atif, in this paper I explore such misplaced enactments of seemingly insignificant everyday gestures in spaces where they are thought not to belong – and where they are often not understood by others –, arguing that they function as one of the few available tools to negotiate, even if only temporarily, the rigid language, class, race, and identity-based borders that structure a refugee’s life after migrating to a supposedly safe – or at least safer – queer h(e)aven.