Sexual adjudications and queer transpositions

Abstract

Each of the articles included in this special issue of the Journal of Language and Sexuality asks us to imagine queer im/migration, asylum and sexual citizenship in multiple dimensions and to probe the discursive operations that establish the parameters of sexual subjectivity. This review article argues that these processes are illustrative of "sexual adjudication:" the discursive coordinates, legal logics and linguistic sensibilities that produce the category of the sexual migrant, the sexual refugee and the sexual asylum seeker. The discussions featured here engage questions of how sexual epistemics work in both sending and receiving countries, as well as the role of borders in constituting narratives of sexual subjectivity. In addition to analyzing the theoretical overlaps and reciprocal conversations between the articles included in the special issue, this essay provides a historical, comparative context by situating these discussions within larger theoretical and terminological questions regarding queer im/migration, asylum and subjectivity.