How Context Matters: Change and Persistence of Homophobic Attitudes among Cameroonian Migrants in Switzerland

Abstract

Debates on human rights in recent years have brought to the fore stark fault lines between African countries, where societal intolerance towards homosexuality is prevalent, and Western countries, which hold more tolerant views towards homosexuality. As contention rages around African identity and homosexuality, one interesting question calls for attention: how do the attitudes of Africans towards homosexuality evolve—or not—when they migrate from their home context to a more open society where homosexuality is widely accepted? This study draws on Herek’s ‘attitudes toward lesbians and gay men scale’ (ATLG) to investigate homophobia among Cameroonians at home compared to Cameroonian migrants in Switzerland and uses in-depth interviews to understand the reasons for any change in or persistence of attitudes. Survey data shows that Cameroonian migrants in Switzerland portray significantly less homophobia compared to Cameroonians living at home. Qualitative analysis identified four factors that contributed to change in attitudes among Cameroonian migrants: (i) experiencing racial prejudice and xenophobia prompted self-reflection about their own prejudices towards others; (ii) witnessing, first-hand, the huge infrastructure and development gap between their host and home country exposed anti-homosexuality politics back home as a needless distraction from actual development priorities; (iii) greater opportunities to meet and interact with gay people in the host country challenged long-held home-grown stereotypes about homosexuality; and (iv) non-discrimination standards and codes of conduct in the workplace in the host country encouraged conformity and shifts towards greater tolerance.

Researching Homosexuality in Difficult Contexts

“…In researching attitudes towards homosexuality among Cameroonians based at home and in Switzerland, I made use of surveys, interviews, and focus group discussions to assess levels of homophobia within the two groups [56]. Though instrumental in achieving my research goals, these traditional methods were insufficient to capture my everyday research experiences [52].…”

Perceived Anomic Threat, Beliefs in LGBTQ Conspiracy Theories and Support for Violence Against LGBTQ Minorities in a Highly Heteronormative Context: The Case of Cameroon

“…Homophobic violence is a major problem facing many Societies (Lyonga, 2022). They are extreme manifestations of heteronormative socio-cultural practices.…”

“…This report indicated that for 84% of Cameroonians, their country was not a good place to live for members of the LGBTQ community. By way of illustration, we can cite the sentencing, in April 2011, of a man named Roger Mbédé to thirty-six (36) months in prison for having sent another man an SMS in which he declared that he was in love with him (Lyonga, 2022;Messanga and Sonfack, 2017); the murder of gay rights activist Eric Lembembe in July 2013 (Messanga and Sonfack, 2017); or more recently, the sentencing, in May 2021, of two transgender people to five (5) years in prison. They had been arrested by the security forces because they were dressed in a typically feminine way despite their biological sex being male (hrw.org/fr/news/2021/05/12/in cameroon two women transgender people were sentenced five years in prison).…”

“…By the recurrence of these considerations, a significant number of heterosexuals adhere to the idea that there is a LGBTQ conspiracy. Its purpose would be to spread this "non-African" sexual orientation imported onto the continent by the colonizers (Da Costa Santos, 2013), whose intention was to pervert local communities by questioning their values and beliefs (Epprecht, 2008;Lyonga, 2022), based in particular on the ideology of survival. From this perspective, homosexuality constitutes a threat to these communities, not only to their survival, but also to their value systems.…”

“…The current study is conducted in Cameroon. This country is located in sub-Saharan Africa; a region considered to be one of the most hostile in the world towards the LGBTQ community (Lyonga, 2022;Van Heerden, 2019), but which, despite this status, does not receive much attention from researchers who are interested in extremist and violent behaviors against members of this community.…”