Call for papers - Lavender Languages Conference

[Valentina]

Hi everybody,

I am organizing a double panel on discourse, immigration and Queer sexualities 
for  the Lavender Languages Conference (American University, Washington DC,  
February 11-13, 2011), together with Rafael Lainez. We are soliciting  papers 
right now. I am pasting our complete call for papers below, which  is still a 
drafty draft, so it it open to changes later on. Anybody who  may be interested 
in joining, drop me a line.


 
Call for Papers
 
Language, Migration and Sexualities
This panel will focus on the discourses structuring the conditions met by Queer 
migrants, including those discourses regimenting sexuality in both the countries 
of origin and arrival of migrants. The panel will be divided in two parts.
Part 1: Seeking Inclusion: Discourses Surrounding Sexualities, Migration and 
Belonging.
Organizer: Rafael Lainez
Migration is often described as a quest for economic betterment. Social 
scientists have begun to inform how sexual minorities migrate for economic 
betterment and for the opportunity to express their sexuality within a 
supportive community. However, upon migrating, some immigrant sexual minorities 
face social challenges which prohibit them from entering communities comprised 
of sexual minorities in the mainstream. In this session, we welcome papers 
exploring these discursive relations between sexuality, conditions of migration, 
and the efforts to mainstream community engagement. Papers focusing on the 
impact on migration on gender and sexual identities are also welcome.
Part 2: Discourses of Citizenship and Queerness.
Organizer: Valentina Pagliai
Papers are welcome on topics that touch on the production of discourses about 
Queerness in the receiving countries, and their possible impact on the lives of 
Queer migrants. This may include (but is not limited to) papers about the use of 
discourses of tolerance for sexual differences in nation-state rhetoric, or 
those produced by pro-immigrant or anti-immigrant groups; papers exploring the 
production of discourses about danger and desire which may exoticize Queer 
migrants as Others, to be either ostracized or included; those addressing the 
intersections between discourses of race, class and sexuality in the receiving 
countries; papers focusing on discourses about Queer migrants produced in the 
legal system of receiving countries and the deriving policies; the impact of 
Queer migration on the sense of Self of people in the receiving countries, 
including in the imagination of sexuality and desire; etc.
 
Best,

Valentina Pagliai
Department of Anthropology
American University