Episode 6: Queer and Trans African Mobilities

In a wide-ranging, in-depth interview conducted November 2022, Dr B Camminga addresses these questions to identify some of the key emergent challenges confronting humanitarians and policymakers engaged in governing international mobility. Drawing upon their own work and that of other leading researchers, Camminga provides a much-needed, accessible overview of some of the diverse scenarios described by the latest fieldwork across numerous countries and contexts. From Morocco to South Africa, Kenya to Gabon, a complex mosaic of diverse scenarios and trajectories is sketched – one that nonetheless contains discernable patterns shaped by colonial histories and contemporary legal, political, and constitutional developments.

Speaker Bio

B Camminga (they/them) is a fellow at the Institute for Cultural Inquiry, Berlin, and a research associate at the African Centre for Migration & Society, Wits University. They work on issues relating to gender identity and expression on the African continent with a focus on transgender migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers. Their first monograph, Transgender Refugees and the Imagined South Africa, received the 2019 Sylvia Rivera Award in Transgender Studies (with Aren Azuira) and honourable mention in the Ruth Benedict Prize for Queer Anthropology. They are a co-convenor of the African LGBTQI+ Migration Research Network (ALMN), which aims to advance scholarship on all facets of LGBTQI+ migration on, from, and to the African continent by bringing together scholars, researchers, practitioners, and activists to promote knowledge exchange and support evidence-based policy responses. 

Further Reading

B Camminga with John Marnell (2022) Queer and Trans African Mobilities: Migration, Diaspora, and Asylum

& Categories and Queues: The Structural Realities of Gender and the South African Asylum System

Global Roundtable on Protection and Solutions for LGBTIQ+ People in Forced Displacement – Summary Conclusions (2021)