The Sexual Politics of Asylum

The Sexual Politics of Asylum is a groundbreaking study of the ways in which the lived experiences of sexual minority refugees become entangled with the regimes of human rights they intersect by applying for asylum in the UK. Through a long-term process of ethnographic and participant observation the book documents and explores the process of granting, and more often denying asylum, as well as the harsh living conditions experiences by claimants. Calogero Giametta analyses how all asylum claimants are put in the position of having to provide an impossibly coherent biographical narrative vis-a-vis border control and immigration administration in order for their claims to be recognized as 'credible'. In doing so, he exposes the many ways in which the process of granting asylum acts as a powerful bordering mechanism that often ends up denying sexual minority asylum seekers their rights in the name of their humanitarian protection. Nick Mai, Professor of Sociology and Migration Studies, Kingston University London In The Sexual Politics of Asylum, Calogero Giametta presents a theoretically sophisticated and empirically rich examination of the lived experiences of people claiming asylum in the UK based on sexual orientation and gender identity. The book provides an insightful and politically important critique of humanitarianism with regard to LGBT politics, and should be required reading for anyone concerned about the gender and sexual politics of asylum and immigration in the UK and elsewhere. Jon Binnie, Reader in Human Geography, Manchester Metropolitan University Gender and sexuality define the boundaries of Fortress Europe. Migrants are often denied entry in the name of sexual democracy. Conversely, sexual migrants can claim asylum. While they have to tell their stories, these often speak more about us than about them . Giametta takes into account the discursive constraints of immigration policies (in the UK as elsewhere), but his rich ethnographic interviews give sexual migrants a voice of their own. Eric Fassin, professor of Sociology, Departments of Political Science and Gender Studies, Paris-8 University in Saint-Denis