The hidden side of migration: Understanding sexuality as an aspiration to migrate
Dilvin Dilara Usta
Mustafa F Ozbilgin- 1University of York, United Kingdom
- 2Business School, Brunel University London, United Kingdom
Sexuality is an understated yet increasingly important motive for migration. Motivation to migrate is often viewed from a polarised lens, either as the pursuit of economic security or as a desire to access to human rights, on which social policy on migration has been predicated. We introduce the notion of the toxic triangle to account for contexts that prove hostile to freedom of sexuality and trigger individuals to migrate. Drawing on insights from 25 interviews, we demonstrate how sexuality remains a silent yet significant contributor to individuals’ decisions to migrate from an adversarial context. We illustrate how the participants fall into four archetypes of dreamers, climbers, escapists, and seekers, based on their endowments and experiences of sexuality and gender identity as salient sources of their motivation to migrate. Focusing on the hidden side of Turkish migration to the UK offers insights into how the pursuit of freedom of sexuality in terms of safety and security shapes motivations and experiences of migration across two cultures.
Keywords: Migration, Sexuality, space, security, Turkish migration to the UK, Endowments
Received:24 Aug 2022;
Accepted: 14 Dec 2022.
Copyright: © 2022 Usta and Ozbilgin. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Prof. Mustafa F Ozbilgin, Brunel University London, Business School, Uxbridge, UB8 3PH, London, United Kingdom