Same-sex migration in Australia: From interdependency to intimacy

GLQ

Volumn 14, Issue 2-3, 2008, Pages 239-262

  Yue, Audrey ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 43949141237     PISSN: 10642684     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1215/10642684-2007-032     Document Type: Review

References (93)

1. This figure is based on the capping figure set by the Department of Immigration (Keith Stodden, interview with author, Gay and Lesbian Immigration Task Force, St. Kilda, Victoria, June 2, 2005). It does not include the number of same-sex couples and individual gays and lesbians who have been granted visas under humanitarian or skilled classifications. On the former, see, for example, "Australia Grants Political Asylum to Gays," Capital Q (Sydney), November 6, 1992. Australia's Department of Immigration has undergone a few portfolio changes since the 1970s. It has been known as the Department of Immigration and Ethnic Affairs (1976-87, 1993-96);
2. the Department of Immigration, Local Government and Ethnic Affairs (1987-93);
3. the Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs (1996-2001);
4. the Department of Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs (DIMIA) (2001-6);
5. and is currently the Department of Immigration and Citizenship (DIAC) (2007-). To avoid the confusing nomenclature, this article uses the term Department of Immigration throughout.
6. On homosexuality and human rights history in Australia, see Baden Offord, Homosexual Rights as Human Rights: Activism in Indonesia, Singapore, and Australia (New York: Lang, 2003);
7. and David Phillips and Graham Willett, eds., Australia's Homosexual Histories (Sydney: Australian Centre for Lesbian and Gay Research, 2000). On the development of HIV/AIDS sexual health policy,
8. see Gary Dowsett, "Johnnie Comes Marching . . . Where? Australian Gay Men, Masculinity, HIV/AIDS, and Sex," Culture, Health, and Sexuality 5 (2003): 237-47.
9. For a critique of the celebration of everyday multiculturalism, see Ghassan Hage, Against Paranoid Nationalism: Searching for Hope in a Shrinking Society (Annandale, NSW: Pluto, 2003);
10. for a critique of the deployment of "togetherness" as a rhetoric for multiculturalism, see Ien Ang, On Not Speaking Chinese: Living between Asia and the West (London: Routledge, 2001);
11. for a history of multiculturalism as a social policy, see James Jupp, From White Australia to Woomera: The Story of Australian Immigration (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002);
12. and Justin Healey, ed., Multiculturalism in Australia (Thirroul, NSW: Spinney, 2005).
13. Emmanuel Lévinas, Totality and Infinity: An Essay on Exteriority, trans. Alphonso Lingis (Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1969), 155.
14. Stephanie Dowrick, Intimacy and Solitude: Changing Your Life (Melbourne: Heinemann, 1991), 193.
15. Thomas Kasulis, Intimacy or Integrity: Philosophy and Cultural Difference (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2002), 27.
16. Anthony Giddens, The Transformation of Intimacy: Sexuality, Love, and Eroticism in Modern Societies (Cambridge: Polity, 1992), 2. For a criticism of how Giddens ignores gender and class inequalities,
17. see Lynn Jamieson, "Intimacy Transformed? A Critical Look at the 'Pure Relationship,'" Sociology 33 (1999): 477-94.
18. Jean Cohen, Regulating Intimacy: A New Legal Paradigm (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002), 118.
19. Lauren Berlant, The Queen of America Goes to Washington City: Essays on Sex and Citizenship (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1997);
20. Berlant, ed., "Intimacy: A Special Issue," Critical Inquiry 24 (1998): 281.
21. Jupp, From White Australia to Woomera, 6.
22. Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality, trans. Robert Hurley, vols. 1-3 (New York: Pantheon Books, 1978-86).
23. Robert Hughes, The Fatal Shore: A History of the Transportation of Convicts to Australia, 1787-1868 (London: Pan Books, 1988), 271.
24. Eithne Luibhéid, Entry Denied: Controlling Sexuality at the Border (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2002).
25. Eithne Luibhéid and Lionel Cantú Jr., eds., Queer Migrations: Sexuality, U.S. Citizenship, and Border Crossings (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2005).
26. Michel Foucault, "Governmentality," in The Foucault Effect: Studies in Governmentality, ed. Graham Burchill, Colin Gordon, and Peter Miller (Hemel Hempstead, UK: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1991), 87-104.
27. Ian Hacking, The Taming of Chance (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 2.
28. Michael Taussig, Defacement: Public Secrecy and the Labor of the Negative (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999), 5.
29. Berlant, "Intimacy," 282.
30. James Jupp, Immigration (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1998), 132.
31. Peter de Waal, Lesbians and Gays Changed Australian Immigration: History and Herstory (Darlinghurst, NSW: Gay and Lesbian Immigration Task Force NSW, 2002), xxxii.
32. Luibhéid and Cantú, Queer Migrations, xii-xiii; Jupp, Immigration, 15-19.
33. Jupp, Immigration, 44.
34. Australia Parliament, "Immigration Policies and Australia's Population," Ministerial Statement, Parliamentary Debates, House of Representatives, Hansard, June 7, 1978, 3155.
35. De Waal, Lesbians and Gays, 26-27.
36. De Waal, Lesbians and Gays, 27.
37. "Gay Marriages Immigration," Sun-Herald (Sydney), May 22, 1988.
38. See Section 6A(l)(e) in Australian Government, Migration Act 1958: Reprinted with Amendments up to Act No. 157 (Canberra: Attorney-General's Department, 2001).
39. Countries that currently recognize gay and lesbian couples for the purposes of immigration include Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Israel, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, South Africa, Sweden, and the United Kingdom.
40. Graham Willett, Living out Loud: A History of Gay and Lesbian Activism in Australia (St. Leonards, NSW: Allen and Unwin, 2000), 47.
41. John Hart, Stories of Gay and Lesbian Immigration: Together Forever? (New York: Harrington Park, 2002). The Gay Immigration Task Force is currently one of the longest-running Australian lesbian and gay activist groups, with branches in New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, and Queensland. It provides advice and support to couples on how to apply for permanent residency under the partner migration program by providing information to help them write their own applications under a DIY scheme. It liaises with migration officials and politicians to enable them to further understand how same-sex migration law affects gay and lesbian couples. It also lobbies for improvement to these laws to enable gay and lesbian couples to stay together.
42. See Gay and Lesbian Immigration Taskforce Web site www.glitf.org.au (accessed May 2, 2007).
43. Australia Parliament, Parliamentary Debates, House of Representatives, Hansard, November 7, 1991, 2687-89.
44. DIMIA, "Australian Immigration Fact Sheet 30 - Family Stream Migration - Partners," www.immi.gov.au/facts/30partners.htm (accessed December 15, 2004).
45. This category is not available to unmarried heterosexual couples who are eligible to apply for permanent residency under the "heterosexual de facto spouse partner category."
46. Kasulis, Intimacy or Integrity, 36.
47. Kasulis, Intimacy or Integrity, 36, parenthesis added.
48. Kasulis, Intimacy or Integrity, 37.
49. For a critical examination of these types of relationships, see the special issue of Current Sociology 52, no. 2 (2004) that explores new intimate formations outside the conventional family.
50. De Waal, Lesbians and Gays, 16.
51. For legal studies critiques of these provisions, see Joseph Chetcuti, "Relationships of Interdependency: Immigration for Same-Sex Partners," in Gay Perspectives: Essays in Australian Gay Culture, ed. Robert Aldrich and Garry Wotherspoon (Sydney: University of Sydney Press, 1992), 165-79;
52. and Stephen Warne, "Migration for Same-Sex Couples," Alternative Law Journal 19, no. 5 (1994): 218-23.
53. For current requirements of the visa, see DIMIA, Partner Migration Handbook (Canberra: DIMIA, 2005), 28, 13.
54. DIMIA, Annual Report 2003-2004 (Canberra: DIMIA, 2004).
55. DIMIA, Partner Migration Handbook, 3.
56. See Kath Weston, Long Slow Burn: Sexuality and Social Science (New York: Routledge, 1998).
57. In Australia, see Ruth McNair, Deborah Dempsey, Sarah Wise, and Amaryll Perlesz, "Lesbian Parenthood: Issues, Strengths, and Challenges," Family Matters 63 (Spring-Summer 2002): 40-49.
58. Stodden, interview with author.
59. Steven Seidman, Chet Meeks, and Francie Traschen, "Beyond the Closet? The Changing Social Meaning of Homosexuality in the United States," Sexualities 2 (1999): 9-34.
60. Steven Seidman, "From Outsider to Citizen," in Regulating Sex: The Politics of Intimacy and Identity, ed. Elizabeth Bernstein and Laurie Schaffner (New York: Routledge, 2005), 227.
61. Shelly Dudgeon and Sasha Roseneil, "Editors' Introduction: Beyond the Conventional Family," Current Sociology 52, no. 2 (2004): 129.
62. Carl Strychin, Governing Sexuality: The Changing Politics of Citizenship and Law Reform (Oxford: Hart, 2003), 105.
63. Miranda Joseph, "Family Affairs: The Discourse of Global/Localization," in Queer Globalizations: Citizenship and the Afterlife of Colonialism, ed. Arnaldo Cruz-Malavé and Martin F. Manalansan IV (New York: New York University Press, 2002), 89.
64. David Bell and Jon Binnie, The Sexual Citizen: Queer Theory and Beyond (Malden, MA: Polity, 2000), 11.
65. De Waal, Lesbians and Gays, 20.
66. DIAC, Multicultural Australia: United in Diversity, May 2003, www.immi.gov.au/living-in-australia/a-diverse-australia/government-policy/index. htm (accessed May 1, 2007).
67. Berlant, Queen of America, 5.
68. Strychin, Governing Sexuality, 7.
69. Lauren Berlant and Michael Warner, "Sex in Public," Critical Inquiry 24, no. 2 (1988): 3.
70. On-shore applications are lodged in the country;
71. off-shore applications are lodged from an overseas diplomatic post. This figure is based on an approximate calculation of off-shore statistics provided by the Department of Immigration. Off-shore applications make up about 30 percent of the total applications. As figure 1 notes, 227 off-shore permits were issued to gay Asian men. The total of both on-shore and off-shore permits, in this calculation, is thus 757.
72. On the emergence of GLBTIQ social movements and queer globalizations in Asia during this period, see Chris Berry, Fran Martin, and Audrey Yue, eds., Mobile Cultures: New Media in Queer Asia (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2003).
73. See, for example, Bob Hodge and John O'Carroll, Borderwork in Multicultural Australia (Crows Nest, NSW: Allen and Unwin, 2006).
74. Stephen Russell (Department of Immigration, state director of Victoria), interview with author, Gay and Lesbian Immigration Task Force Meeting, St. Kilda, Melbourne, June 5, 2005.
75. Luibhéid argues immigration functions in "a double sense" to limit and delimit the nation and its claims to citizenship. See Luibhéid and Cantú, Queer Migrations, xi.
76. Countries with clearance from Australia's Electronic Travel Authority are considered low-risk countries. See www.immi.gov.au/eta/index.htm (accessed June 20, 2005). Information about the disparity in these visa processing times is gathered from my interviews with applicants and activists between 1991 and 2004. In the DIMIA's Annual Report for 2003-4, these processing times are listed as 3.9 months for low-risk countries and 7.6 months for high-risk countries (61).
77. DIAC, Australian Immigration Fact Sheet 55: The Electronic Travel Authority, www.immi.gov.au/media/fact-sheets/55eta.htm (accessed May 28, 2007).
78. Jupp, Immigration, 141-60.
79. Tim Benzie, "The Long Way Around," Sydney Star Observer, September 1, 2004, www.ssonet.com.au/display.asp?ArticleID=3309.
80. The migration solicitor David Puls, quoted in Benzie, "Long Way Around."
81. Alan Sinfield, "Diaspora and Hybridity: Queer Identities and the Ethnicity Model," Textual Practice 10 (1996): 271-93;
82. David Eng, "Out Here and Over There: Queerness and Diaspora in Asian American Studies," Social Text, nos. 52-53 (1997): 31-52;
83. Elspeth Probyn, Outside Belongings (New York: Routledge, 1996), 97-122;
84. Anne-Marie Fortier, "'Coming Home': Queer Migrations and Multiple Evocations of Home," European Journal of Cultural Studies 4 (2001): 405-24.
85. Olivia Espín, Women Crossing Boundaries: A Psychology of Immigration and Transformations of Sexuality (New York: Routledge, 1999).
86. In the original table, there were two entries for Malaysia and Thailand. I have included only one based on its average (De Waal, Lesbians and Gays, 217).
87. Australian Bureau of Statistics, Migration 2002-2003: 3412.0 (Canberra: ABS, 2004), 7.
88. Peter Jackson, "'That's What Rice Queens Study!' White Gay Desire and Representing Asian Homosexuality," in Diaspora: Negotiating Asian-Australia, ed. Helen Gilbert, Tseen Khoo, and Jacqueline Lo (St. Lucia: University of Queensland Press, 2000), 181.
89. Michael Herzfeld, Cultural Intimacy: Social Poetics in the Nation-State, 2nd ed. (New York: Routledge, 2005), 91.
90. Herzfeld, Cultural Intimacy, 2.
91. Herzfeld, Cultural Intimacy, 3.
92. Herzfeld, Cultural Intimacy, 6.
93. Audrey Yue, "Asian-Australian Cinema, Asian-Australian Modernity," in Gilbert, Khoo, and Lo, Diaspora, 190-99.