Intimate Nation

The last thirty years in the Netherlands has seen a resurgence of xenophobic nationalism, with Dutch nationalists warning of a threat to “Dutch culture” and its mythic tradition of liberalism, in particular from Islam and Muslim migrants.  Journalistic and scholarly reports on the supposed exceptional homophobia of Muslim migrant communities have ignited a public discourse and moral panic over “tolerating intolerance.” In this context, I examine how the processes of claiming asylum as a sexual minority produce rather than simply represent a specific type of subject. To avail one’s self of this protection involves the telling of a narrative credible to the asylum system, using the ideological idioms of sexuality, experience, and culture that are intelligible and recognizable to Dutch officials. An asylum applicant must often conform to strict expectations and stereotypes of what an LGBTI asylum seeker must look like, act like, know, and have experienced—and if they fail in representing themselves as this type of subject, their stories are deemed non-credible, and their claim for asylum denied. How do the formal processes of claiming asylum as a sexual minority, as well as the social contexts in which an individual experiences asylum, produce rather than simply represent a specific type of subject? What is the role played by formalized social networks and small non-governmental organizations in producing and constituting communities of “LBGTI asylum seekers” and refugees? What are the contexts in which strategies, stories, and social lives are shared between asylum seekers?