Post-migration health and wellbeing of Southeast Asian queer migrants

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Post-migration health and wellbeing of Southeast Asian queer migrants

What is queer migrants’ health and wellbeing condition after migration? Has it improved or deteriorated? This seminar discusses post-migration health and wellbeing of Southeast Asian queer migrants. By Southeast Asian queer migrants, the presenter refers to individuals who identify as gender, sexuality and sex characteristics diverse such as lesbian, gay, transgender, non-binary, intersex, bisexual and pansexual individuals and have emigrated out of their home country in the Southeast Asian region. The exploratory study makes use of qualitative data collected from in-depth interviews with 15 queer migrants from Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam and The Philippines and Thailand to understand their health and wellbeing post migration. The respondents on one hand, through emigration, have relatively more space and opportunities in their host society to live out their queer selves and construct queer life-affirming care practices. On the other hand, many continue to experience difficulties and stresses as they work out their queer migrant lives in the host country and manage transnational familial obligations. Such 'neither here nor there', 'not quite home yet' liminal existence inevitably has implications on queer migrants’ health and wellbeing. The presenter makes use of a transnational and intersectional feminist approach to discuss the structural conditions that both capacitate and debilitate the Southeast Asian queer migrants’ health and wellbeing post migration.

About Dr Quah Ee Ling

Dr Quah Ee Ling (she/her) is a fire dragon feminist and Senior Lecturer in Culture & Society with Western Sydney University. Ee Ling is Singaporean of Chinese-Hokkien and Indonesian-Peranakan heritage. The correct order of her name is surname first followed by given name. Ee Ling developed her own strand of feminism - fire dragon feminism - to blow flames at injustices and build solidarities for a more just and equitable world. She has very little patience for racism, queerphobia, patriarchy and misogyny. Ee Ling is the author of Transnational Divorce: Understanding Intimacies and Inequalities from Singapore (Routledge 2020) and Perspectives on Marital Dissolution: Divorce Biographies in Singapore (Springer 2015). Her research on heteronormativity, intersectionality, gender & sexuality, queer studies, race, migration, transnational studies, emotions and intimacies have also appeared in Journal of Ethnic & Migration Studies, Gender, Work and Organisation, Journal of Family Issues, Emotion, Space and Society, Journal of Sociology, Australian Feminist Studies and Marriage & Family Review.