The Sexual Politics of Asylum. An Analysis of Discourses in Decisions on Gender and Sexual Orientation Persecution in Spain
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Abstract
This article aims to analyze the rulings issued by Spain’s Audiencia Nacional and Supreme Court between 2009 and 2020 in response to asylum claims based on gender and sexual orientation persecution. The study explores the discourses reproduced by authorities and the ways in which arguments are deployed to justify their decisions. Through a critical discourse analysis, the research unveils how asylum operates as a dispositif that actively constructs the notion of an authentic queer subject. This construct facilitates the exclusion of bodies and individuals from the Global South from international protection—and, by extension, from membership policies—when they fail to align with the hegemonic conception of Spain as a political community.
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