GENDERING ASYLUM INFRASTRUCTURES Mobilisation of sensitivity to gender, sexual orientation and violence in post-2014 Europe

• Applicant: Marija Grujic, Ph.D.
• Subject Area: Empirical Social Research ; Social and Cultural Anthropology and Ethnology
• Term: since 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 528674606

Diverse scholarly findings about the centrality of gender in the context of asylum and hosting refugees inform how a range of social issues concerning women and LGBTIQ+ persons are perceived and addressed within those settings. Yet, the everyday aspects of the complexities of mobilising gender and sexuality-based sensitivity and exposures to violence within asylum infrastructures (e.g., assessments, reception, counselling) tend to be unnoticed. This project explores the responsible asylum personnel’s practice based on their understanding of intersections between gender, sexuality and violence when interacting with asylum applicants. The focus is on the mobilisation of gender orders and views about femininities/masculinities, particularly within the assessment of ‘special needs’ and ‘vulnerability’ for which relevant actors apply digital tools to foster equal treatment and protection. Drawing on qualitative research into how gender, sexuality and violence are mobilised in asylum assessments and reception procedures in both Germany, with the focus on its adoption of EU mechanisms of protection, and the UK, with attention to post-Brexit changes adopting a ‘hostile environment’, prominent narratives of intersections are outlined, which operate in relation to often-diverging discourses about men as threats and women as susceptible to violability. Building on gender order theories, representations of femininities/masculinities are traced in official guidelines and mundane practices on a gender-sensitive approach in asylum procedures. The project also draws on critical migration research on the coloniality of migration, intersectionality and decolonial approaches. Besides feminist criticism of gender orders in forced migration and international protection, a theorisation of the usage of digital technologies in asylum infrastructures is developed based on critical sociological and anthropological studies of asylum reception. The project will elaborate on how gender-sensitive procedures are put in place and modified by interactions between asylum personnel and asylum seekers and what it means to assess vulnerability or perceive gender and sexuality through a lens of violence.

• DFG Programme: WBP Position