This panel places queer refugee experiences and queer refugee studies at the forefront of larger discussions of political asylum, global or transnational perceptions of queerness, and overlapping systems of governance. Rather than treating queer refugees as exceptional or marginal to refugee studies, we explore how queerness is central to the formation of refugee subjects, border regimes, and state technologies.

This panel focuses broadly on the ways that refugees and other migrants from the Middle East to Europe experience and/or respond to discrimination and exclusion. We hope to better understand how both new and old forms of racism, Islamophobia, Orientalism, and other processes of differentiation shape the experiences of migrants, and we are especially interested in new perspectives that the lens of race brings to the study of Middle Eastern migrants in the EU.

This roundtable brings together scholars, activists, and NGO volunteers to discuss how to learn from and with refugees, teach about refugees, and engage with refugee communities. What are the strategies for resisting the racialization and marginalization of refugees and for developing an appreciation of refugee experiences, knowledge, and contributions to societies? What interventions in research, in the classroom, and in community organizing are required to promote ethical engagements with refugees and to maximize benefits flowing from these engagements to refugees and their communities?