Radical Queer Epistemic Network: Kurdish Diaspora, Futurity, and Sexual Politics

This article examines the ways in which London's queer Kurdish activists imagine Kurdistan(s) and their relation to politics surrounding Kurdish and queer struggles in the United Kingdom. In doing so, the article draws attention to a “radical queer epistemic network” that establishes a transnational link among/across different borders of queer communities in the United Kingdom, such as race and class; “homeland” and “hostland”; present and future. Although there are works focusing on the Kurdish diaspora in Europe and the United Kingdom, there is a gap in the literature when it comes to queer voices and epistemologies. How do Kurdish queer subjects negotiate ethnic, gender and sexual identities whilst imagining and (re)constructing the homeland, hostland, and politics? How do queer Kurds assert their existence and make alliances in the United Kingdom’s political sphere? Can these experiences subvert the orientalist gaze directed towards queer Middle Easterners while critiquing the existing oppressive structures that affect them? This article sheds light not only on the experiences of a segment of the queer Middle East diaspora community in London but also on the mobilisation of the diasporic sexual impulsions within the political sphere through an auto-ethnographic account from London Pride 2017, contributing to the deconstruction of a presumed monolithic group, namely the Kurdish diaspora.