This paper discusses the experiences of LGBTPQ migrants’ from the Global North, and their resocialisation and sense of belonging to the queer community, their immigrant community and the wider Icelandic society. It examines how participants’ gender, sexuality, “race”, ethnicity, nationality, and class intersect and transform their experiences, through the migration and integration process, as well as through the continuous process of managing information about their sexual orientation and gender identity. The conceptual frameworks of Othering, transnationalism and intersectionality are applied, and the study engages with theoretical frameworks such as theories of critical whiteness, social class, the politics of belonging as well as affective belonging, and queer hybridity.
The findings suggest that although managing information about one’s sexual orientation and gender identity can pose a challenges, within the Icelandic context as well as elsewhere, being racialized and labelled as the immigrant other seems to be the predominant challenge, which is, in some cases, impossible to overcome. This othering of immigrants is nonetheless strongly embedded in “racial”, cultural and class hierarchies, as white migrants from the Global North often have a more privileged experiences of inclusion and belonging than non-white migrants from the Global South. On the other hand, participants coming from Central and Eastern Europe are, in many cases, automatically made to occupy a lower social standing within society, compared to other white immigrants.
The originality of this research project is that it brings together migration studies and LGBTQ studies, sometimes also referred to as queer migration studies, within the Icelandic context. Queer migration studies critically engage with issues of imperialism, racism, sexism and heteronormativity, while also giving voice to queer migrants’ within the academic world and highlighting their agency. The impact of this study is that it bridges a gap within queer migrations scholarship, which is queer migrations to a small population in northern Europe while also critically examining predominant notions of the Nordic counties. Such as, ideas relating to how racism and racialization is assumingly a foreign import in Iceland, and how that connects to the concept of Nordic exceptionalism.

I am currently a doctoral candidate in anthropology, at the University of Iceland. I have a MA in sociology from City, University of London and an BA in sociology from the University of Iceland. I further took several gender studies courses in my undergraduate studies in Iceland, as well as in my doctoral studies but mainly abroad. I was awarded a Rannís grant from 2014 till 2017 and a teaching assistant grant from the the Faculty of Sociology, Anthropology and Folkloristics at the University of Iceland from 2017 till 2018. I have already published two articles in international peer reviewed journal from this research, on queer migrations from the Global South and from Central and Eastern Europe, this paper is based on my third article.

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