Appropriating Feminism & LGBTQ Rights: Racialized and Gendered Boundaries in Refugee Politics

This paper analyzes the public debate on the events that took place in Cologne on New Year’s eve 2015, where refugee men were accused of sexually assaulting a large number of women, by comparing it to public debate on the resettlement of Syrian refugees in Canada. In November 2015, the newly elected Liberal Canadian government unveiled its plan to increase the number of resettled refugees 30-fold. In response to the Paris attacks a month prior, the plan stipulated that single Syrian men would be placed at the bottom of the admissible refugee list, after “complete” families, women, children, and LGBTQ refugees. The paper analyzes how public debate of these cases activates certain understanding of race, gender, Islam and violence to inform the creation of both symbolic and material boundaries. Symbolically, refugees can become part of the national collective as members of the nation take on the moral burden to protect those in need of protection unless their admission risks the fabric of the nation-state itself. Materially, debates focus on maintaining territorial integrity, the disbursement of public funds and access to public resources. In the German case, the Cologne events reinforced an understanding of Muslim men as incapable of respecting the rights of women which then became “evidence” for a rejection of Angela Merkel’s decision to open Germany’s borders. The Canadian case helps illustrate how heterosexual (single) Muslim men are positioned as the dangerous ones even for politicians who justify resettling large numbers of refugees to enact the humanitarian, welcoming nation-state.