Sexuality as a rights-claiming object and the politics of humanitarianism

1. Sexuality as a rights-claiming object and the politics of humanitarianism LAMES (Laboratoireméditerranéende sociologie) at MaisonMéditerranéenne des Sciences de l’Homme

2. Aujourd’hui, l’humanitaireestformé d’un réseaud’institutions, de pratiques et de discourspossédant des logiquesparticulières, indépendantes en apparencebienqu’interconnectées, donnant lieu à un appareilefficace de pouvoir… Loin de l’actionspontanée, urgente, isolée et imprévisible, l’actionhumanitaireappartientà un systèmedevenucomplexe qui suppose des savoirs, des techniques, des discours, des disciplines, des institutions et des individus. L’ action humanitairetrouvesesressourcesthéoriquesdans des disciplines comme le droit, la médecine, l’économie, maisaussidansl’éthique et dans la politique. Le dispositifhumanitaireagitdans un champ danslequelévoluentégalementd’autresdispositifs (Emil Cock, 2003) Today, the humanitarian consists of a network of institutions, practices and discourses with particular and independent logics that are seemingly well interconnected, giving rise to an effective device of power…Far from spontaneous, urgent, isolated and unpredictable action, humanitarian action belongs to a system that has become complexthat involves knowledges, techniques, discourses, disciplines, institutions and individuals. Humanitarian action finds its theoretical resources in disciplines such as law, medicine, economics, but also in ethics and politics. The humanitarian dispositif is in a field from within which other dispositives also evolve (translation and emphasis mine).

3. There is in France a facile moralism. For example, I know many in politics who are not against sexwork, but they’ d never admit it because this might prevent them from retaining power. This easy moralism guarantees their position of power. (Gisellatrans activist for LGBT migrants in Paris, March 2014) • It’s important for me to pay attention to how the system of humanitarian interventions put the blame on the individual, who tries to use the story that the humanitarians want to hear. So people think that they need to regret what they did or who they have been in the past, it’s like me pretending that I wasn’t a sexworker in the past. (Gisella, March 2014)

4. Government The set of procedures established and actions conducted in order to manage, regulate, and support the existence of human beings: government includes but exceeds the intervention of the state, local administrations, international bodies, and political institutions more generally(Fassin, 2012)

5. Sexual humanitarianism operates by containing through social interventions the mobility of migrant groups that are strategically essentialised and othered as ‘pure’ victims of sexual oppression and exploitation. As migrants’ nuanced understandings and experiences of ambivalence, vulnerability and resilience are obfuscated, only a minority of them receives appropriate support through sexual humanitarian social interventions, which tend to exacerbate rather than reduce migrants’ vulnerability to exploitation (Mai, forthcoming).

6. Sexual humanitarianism is the set of discourses and practices used by the systems of institutions (governmental, non-governmental and academic), whose raison d’être is in the imperative of intervening to end the suffering to which sexual minorities and other forms of gender and sexual-subalternised Others are subjected.

7. From discourse of Social Protection to the practice of Border Control http://vimeo.com/84704860

8. Culturisationof homophobia: naturalising violence against sexual and gender minorities and linking it to a country/culture - It’s a cultural problem…nothing can be done about it

9. Biographical Borders (Mai, 2013) Somatic Borders (Giametta, forthcoming) The former emerge in the telling of one’s story to be legally recognised and have one’s rights validated; it is the story itself that materialises access or denial to the borders’ gates. The latter are defined by the evidence of violence that the body (soma) and psyche carry.