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This chapter brings to the forefront various challenges of engaging in both critical and participatory forms of knowledge building, in particular with queer and trans migrants with precarious status. Two scholars trace their previous experiences of engaging in participatory and critical research as well as their shift toward reflexive ways of knowing. This shift elicits the ways in which Critical Participatory Action Research (CPAR) may be used to build reflexive knowledge with and about queer and trans migrant communities, and in particular, LGBTQ refugees and MSM Latino migrants.

Purpose – This chapter examines the roles of the Unification Church (UC) in reconstructing the discourse of the gendered desire of Filipina marriage migrants and their Korean husbands, serving as an intermediary agency in the process of international marriage migration, and reinforcing heterosexual practices as part of a regime of normalization.

Methodology – The chapter is based on 1 year of ethnographic fieldwork that included a review of secondary sources, participant observation, and in-depth interviews with Filipinas and Korean men.

Findings – The chapter shows the ways in which the UC reinforces the dominant discourse of gendered desire that portrays marriage migrants as women who wish to migrate mainly to marry a man who can provide economic stability. Filipina migrants, however, infuse the cultural discourse of romantic love into their decisions about husbands and marriage migration. Lastly, as the UC delineates normative heterosexual practices based on its religious doctrines, the church becomes a “regime of normalization” for traditional patriarchal heteronormativity.

Social implications – The chapter contributes to the idea that gender and sexuality are socially constructed and constitutive of migration.

Originality/value of chapter – The chapter examines not only the matchmaking role of an intermediary agency that facilitates cross-border marriages but also the agency's role in re/constructing gendered desire. Further, the chapter contributes to an understudied area: the social process of reconstructing heteronormativity in a transnational context.

This study sought to gain a better understanding of the general life experiences of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) newcomer youth, situated within the broader context of their lives post-migration. The purpose of this paper is to explore the nature of various forms of oppression experienced by LGBT newcomers and offers recommendations for transforming services to better serve the complex needs of this marginalized population.

The Teens Resisting Urban Trans/Homophobia (TRUTH) project was comprised of ten focus groups with 70 youth (aged 14-29) living in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA). Another three focus groups were conducted with 13 GTA service providers and teachers working with LGBT youth, in addition to one key informant interview. For this paper, the authors drew from a subset of the data including four newcomer-specific focus groups in which there were 39 youth who identified as refugees or immigrants, as well as key informant interviews with four youth (three of whom also participated in focus groups) and one service provider. Participants were asked about “what homophobia and transphobia meant to them”, “where they experienced it”, “in what forms”, and “how it impacted their daily lives”.

The experiences of LGBT newcomer youth in this study involved a complex negotiation of multiple systems of oppression. Youth described experiences of homophobia and racism within interpersonal relationships, in the LGBT community, in their respective diasporic communities, in social service encounters and during the immigration/refugee process. Barriers for LGBT refugee youth included difficulties finding work and accessing health care, as well as the additional burden of proving their sexual orientation during refugee claimant hearings.

While the combination of focus groups and key informant interviews is a strength in this study, it also presents challenges for analysis. In focus groups, it is not always clear who is speaking; because of this, the authors were sometimes unable to differentiate between refugee and immigrant youth (or those without status) in our focus groups, making it often unclear which perspective or experience youth were speaking to. Another limitation was the dominance of the “cisgender gay male voice” in our conclusions. Lesbian and bisexual women were present in fewer numbers and the sample only included three trans youth.

The findings reveal systemic discrimination on the basis of race and sexual orientation that illuminate injustices within Canadian society and systems that can enhance the efforts of those working in policy and service environments. Focused anti-homophobia and anti-racism training, and the implementation of policies designed to enhance accessibility, could improve service provision for newcomer LGBT youth. Furthermore, in order to facilitate a more just settlement process, a broader understanding of sexual identity, gender identity, and gender expression is required of the refugee claimant system.

This study examines the experiences of youth in a large and complex, multicultural, and gay-friendly urban centre, thus providing timely and current data about the well-being of newcomer LGBT youth. As such, it is one of the first studies to offer some insights into the life issues and challenges post-migration of Canadian LGBT newcomer youth.

The purpose of this paper is to use the case of white immigrant women domestics’ experiences in migration to demonstrate that their work experiences are different due to their whiteness. While their racial identity provides them with white privileges, they still face discrimination based on their occupational and immigrant statuses. The case study adds to existing literature on domestic service.

The case study is based on several years of ethnographic work. The author conducted in‐depth interviews with Polish immigrant women and white female employers. The author also held focus groups with Polish women.

White immigrant women from Poland do not automatically assume the white racial identity in the USA. Their whiteness is constructed and reinforced through their interactions with their white female employers. Their whiteness renders their experiences different from racial minority women and immigrant women of color. However, Polish domestics construct their positive work identity to counteract the negative images about them and domestic service as an occupation.

The main limitation the author sees is that the author could have conducted interviews with Mexican immigrant women to compare the differences in terms of their working conditions.

While Polish domestics seem to have better experiences than other groups of immigrant women, domestic workers are excluded from the labor law. They are thus without the protection of labor law. It is important for us to work for the right of immigrant workers to eradicate the inequality in society.

This case shows that the transnational labor migration contributes to further inequality in society since it is usually the migrant workers who take up the low skilled or unskilled work that has few possibilities for promotion and has few benefits. The government needs to address the transnational migration process and the exploitation of migrant workers ensuing from the process.

Polish immigrant women are a unique group of women mainly because they are among the few white women who perform domestic service. Their experiences are different from racial minority women and immigrant women of color. Merging the whiteness approach and domestic service is an innovative approach.

Purpose: This chapter explores the role of life course transitions, personal networks, community, and social support in the physical and mental health of LGBTQ+ elders. Specifically, we review the literature on formal and informal supports and resources available to LGBTQ+ elders as they age.

Methodology: We use an intersectional lens that explores dimensions of social identity and social location among diverse subpopulations within sexual and gender minority (SGM) elders. We outline the implications of access (or lack of access) to formal and informal care for SGM elders' physical and mental health and well-being in late life. We examine the availability of these supports in the context of broad inequalities and life events that structure the life course for LGBTQ+ elders and have long-term health implications.

Findings: Our findings from this review demonstrate how social factors over the life course shape SGM mental and physical health later in life for aging LGBTQ+ populations. We reflect on how strained relationships and lack of acceptance compel some to seek alternative sources of support and relationships. Our analysis uncovers individual and institutional sources of support: personal social networks and formal spaces, such as healthcare settings, that connect elders with resources to develop social support and avoid social isolation.

Implications: The implications of our review reveal the unique needs and barriers to practical and social support that SGM older adults face. We explore alternative supports that LGBTQ+ elders need compared with their heterosexual cisgender peers, given the disproportionate rejection they face in a range of public and intimate spaces. We conclude by identifying and celebrating sources of support and resilience as LGBTQ+ elders have crafted alternate support networks and advocated for increased recognition, rights, and care.

Originality and Value: Despite some recent flourishing of research in SGM health, a road map for scholars, practitioners, and community members outlining future research in understudied areas such as LGBTQ+ aging and transgender health would help advance scholarship and policy. Our commentary highlights quantitative and qualitative studies and suggests avenues for research that put in conversation literatures on rural studies, urban sociology, and social networks; gerontology; health; and gender/sexuality studies.

This chapter examines symphysiotomy in twentieth-century Ireland as one example of a systematized obstetric violence that has characterized Ireland’s modern history. Expanding scholarly interpretations of state- and Church-inflicted abuse of women in the twentieth century, this analysis establishes the medical profession as a central actor alongside the twentieth-century state-Church coalition that regulated women’s reproductive lives and engaged in systematic repression. This chapter recognizes that Ireland’s history of reproductive abuse and coercion did not just involve contraception or abortion but also labor and birth experiences. In addition, it offers a more complete and complex interpretation of obstetric violence by highlighting the experiences of married women with wanted pregnancies; almost all research to date focuses on the experiences of unmarried pregnant women or unwanted pregnancies. This examination of symphysiotomy and obstetric violence in Ireland illuminates the ways in which religious, national, and medical power has been mapped on women’s reproductive bodies, particularly in the decades after independence in 1922. It also makes essential links between Ireland’s past and present, demonstrating that a careful analysis of the history of obstetric violence and the religious underpinnings of it are essential in understanding Ireland today. With this research, we also place symphysiotomy within the context of the global reproductive justice movement, asking how a reproductive justice framework – one that links reproductive rights with social justice – can help us interpret obstetric violence and address the wounds of Ireland’s past.

The purpose of this paper is to illustrate how the particular culture within which research is conducted and its norms and values can give rise to additional challenges and complications for the researcher when the research area is sensitive in nature.

Drawing on research on sexual harassment of working women in Sri Lanka, the researcher engages in self and methodological reflections to elucidate the many challenges faced.

Carrying out sensitive research in an Asian cultural context, with various stereotyping cultural norms, values and beliefs can give rise to additional culture-specific challenges for the researcher, even when the researcher is a cultural insider. How these cultural complexities influence the manner in which the participants respond to data collection and the manner in which the researcher is seen and understood by others are explained. Strategies to overcome these challenges are discussed in light of the cultural competencies propose by Deardorff and Sewyer et al.

The paper highlights the need for researchers engaged in sensitive research to carefully plan and conduct their research, being mindful not only to the sensitive nature of the topic, but also to the cultural edifices and ethos.

The influence of cultural context in conducting sensitive research is not sufficiently addressed. Culture-specific challenges that can arise in cultures outside the West, such as Asia, have specifically being neglected. This paper addresses this knowledge gap by focusing on the culture-specific challenges faced by researchers, whether they are cultural insiders or outsiders.

Eitan Y. Alimi is an assistant professor of political sociology at the Department of Political Science, Hebrew University. He received his PhD in sociology from Boston College in April 2004. His research interests include contentious politics and social movements, radicalization and political terrorism, and conflict resolution with special reference to Israeli political system and the Middle East. Recent publications include articles in Political Studies, British Journal of Political Science, International Journal of Press and Politics, Mobilization, International Political Science Review, Sociological Forum, Ricerche di Storia Politica, and the book, Israeli Politics and the First Palestinian Intifada (Alimi, 2007).

Purpose – The burgeoning literature on gender and immigration has largely abandoned atavistic conceptualizations of gender. Instead, migration scholars have integrated an understanding of gender that is relational, contextual, and mutually constitutive with migration. Most of this research has focused on the ways in which migration shapes gender relations, with much less focus on the ways in which gender relations contribute to migration flows. Additionally, the integration of gender analysis in migration studies has contributed significantly to our understanding of migration but has not informed gender theory to nearly the same extent. In this chapter, we synthesize the extant literature on gender and migration, as it relates to the dynamics that precipitate migration.

Methodology/approach – We conducted a review and synthesis of the extant literature that examines the relationship between gender and the decisions and opportunities to migrate.

Findings – Through this synthesis, we identified four gendered institutions that precipitate migration: (1) global labor markets, (2) family and care work, (3) social networks, and (4) violence.

Practical implications – We contribute to the development of gender theory by examining the structural dimensions of gender, thus illuminating the connections between gender relations operating at macro and micro levels.

Originality/value of paper – Although other scholars have reviewed the literature on gender and migration, previous reviews (and most empirical studies) have focused on how migration has shaped gender relations. No reviews to date have focused on how gender relations shape migration. Additionally, most scholars fail to recognize the relationship of gendered violence to other precipitates of migration.