Paper short abstract:

This paper focuses on the religious experience of LGBT+ displaced people in Nairobi. In their transient and precarious situation, for many faith becomes a terrain of individualised re-discovery and re-appropriation after religion was in part a cause of their displacement.

Paper long abstract:

Religion is frequently depicted in Migration Studies, International Development & Humanitarianism Studies as a source of connection, network (re-)creation and support for migrants and displaced people in their new contexts or during the process of moving. However, those spaces of academic enquiry overlooked the specificities and complexities of displaced communities, for example LGBTQ+ individuals seeking asylum due to sexual persecution and discrimination, often perpetrated in their country of origins in the name of religious values and religious interpretations.

This presentation will focus on LGBTQ+ displaced people in Nairobi, mainly from neighbouring Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Based on qualitative research with participants awaiting for resettlement (often for several years), this presentation will capture the enduring nature of faith and discuss the repositioning of LGBT+ refugees' religious experience and practices. In their words, religion became a personal experience separated from the shared space of religious communities and religious leaders. Participants described faith as very important, with religion providing solace and support through individual reading of sacred texts and through online attendance of religious rituals, for example via Youtube masses, where the community/connectivity elements were short circuited. While for many there was no desire to be part of religious communities, spaces that previously determined suffering, there was however a clear intent to re-engage and re-appropriate their own spirituality in the temporality of their transient situation. Understanding the way embodied religion operates within LGBTQ+ displaced individuals in East Africa would allow to develop relevant new strategies and novel constructive interventions.