Titled "Against abandonment: activist and humanitarian responses to LGBT refugees in Athens and Beirut", the paper is based on their ongoing research, funded by the British Academy.
Comparison between activism in Beirut and Athens
This paper compares LGBT ‘activist-humanitarianism’ in Beirut and Athens. In both locations, a raft of policies aimed at controlling the flow of displaced persons and preventing permanent settlement has increased refugees’ socio-economic precarity.
‘Out' or ‘outed' refugees endure a unique combination of structural and physical violence. In this context, activist and their allies have established support networks that aim to replace heterosexually-based kinship support and limited state-services.
In Beirut, we examine an LGBT-advocacy NGO that offers legal aid and trainings to LGBT refugees and citizens. In Athens, we consider two self-organized horizontalist LGBT support groups.
On the basis of our comparative ethnographic research, we aim, first, to explore the links between group structure and their ultimate intentions to improve the wellbeing of LGBT refugees. Second, we explore the political subjectivities inculcated by refugees who interact with each form of organizing. We conclude that despite the overwhelming effects of ‘neoliberalism, ‘NGO-isation’ and ‘resiliency humanitarianism,’ it was the actions of refugees themselves, in utilizing the spaces offered to them, that ultimately led to any real improvement in their likeness of attaining asylum, contesting structures of humanitarian governance, or their development of political interpretations concerning broader predicaments.