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ABSTRACT
Bureaucratic documents are often overlooked by anthropologists because of their "presumed transparency," that is, the assumption that they provide immediate access to what they document (Hull 2012). However, recent anthropological research reframes documents as mediating objects with active and lively capacities, challenging assumptions of transparency. In this article, I investigate the production of documents in sexual orientation refugee claims in Canada and how this production is crucial to the creation and surveillance of the category of the "sexual orientation refugee." I argue that anxieties about the production and circulation of "credible documentation" (Fassin and Rechtman 2009) by various participants in the refugee system and reliance on "social aesthetics" (Cabot 2013) in making decisions about who is deserving of a letter reflect the state's increased levels of distrust of refugee claimants. These affective anxieties contribute to particular modes of defining, delimiting, or discrediting sexual identity formations and experiences at all levels of the refugee determination system. [Keywords: Refugees, bureaucracy, documentation, sexual orientation, Canada]
Queer Forms: Producing Documentation in Sexual Orientation Refugee Cases
[Keywords: Refugees, bureaucracy, documentation, sexual orientation, Canada]
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Formas Queer: Produzindo Documentaçâo em Casos de Refugiados por Orientaçâo Sexual
[Palavras-chave: Refugiados, burocracia, documentaçâo, orientaçâo sexual, Canadá]
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Queer Forms: Producing Documentation in Sexual Orientation Refugee Cases1
At a meeting for volunteers who helped to facilitate a monthly lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) refugee support group in Toronto, the main topic was how to deal with increasing numbers of group members and their needs. When I first joined the group as a volunteer in June 2011, there were approximately 35-40 people showing up for each meeting; by July 2012, there were almost 100 members in attendance. When one volunteer said that this increase was proof that "we're doing something right," the group leader reminded us that many of the refugee claimants attending these meetings were doing so in order to get letters confirming their membership in the support group or their participation as volunteers in other activities run by this organization. These letters would then be submitted to the Canadian Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB) as part of the refugee claimant's file. The group leader told us that the letters were viewed by IRB adjudicators as "the gold standard" of evidence confirming...