Stockholm university
Department of Ethnology, History of Religions and Gender Studies

Seminar in Queer Studies: Jenny Gunnarsson Payne, Kirill Polkov, Sofie Tornhill

Seminar

Date: Wednesday 5 November 2025

Time: 16.30 – 18.00

Location: Zoom

Social relationships and support networks of Russian and East African queer migrants in Sweden.

Language: English

This paper presents the ongoing work within the project "Navigating anti-LGBTQ politics and homonationalism: Precarity and social support structures among Russian and Ugandan queer migrants in Sweden". This project explores the impact that the geopolitical polarization around LGBTQ issues has on the experiences of queer migrants from the Russian Federation and East Africa, two regions that have profiled themselves as transnational proponents of “traditional values”. Fleeing state-sanctioned homophobia in their home countries, migrants encounter new forms of exclusion in Sweden, a country whose homonationalist migration politics has taken a restrictive turn while explicitly stating its intention to prioritize LGBTQ refugees.

Addressing a lack in previous research on queer migration, we take into account the symbolic role ascribed to LGBTQ-people in different national political projects and what this may concretely entail for migrant experiences. Drawing empirically on biographical semi-structured interviews, we consider a range of migrant trajectories in terms of displacement, reception and possibilities to settle and rebuild life. Special attention is paid to the ways in which identifications are negotiated in relation to public discourses on sexuality and on the role of social relationships and support networks in managing emotional and material vulnerabilities. Doing so, we wish to shed further light on the effects of macro-political struggles on everyday lives, acknowledging how current politicizations of LGBTQ issues generate, strengthen, and disrupt support structures within and across borders.

Jenny Gunnarsson Payne is professor of Ethnology at Södertörn University.

Sofie Tornhill is associate professor in Gender Studies at School of Global Studies, University of Gothenburg

Kirill Polkov is postdoctoral research fellow in Gender Studies at Södertörn University.

Last updated: September 10, 2025

Source: Department of Ethnology, History of Religions and Gender Studies

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