Queer Displacement is a video artwork by Rasel Ahmed and Kavita Gonsalves. It is a provocation on the ethics of trauma storytelling based on the exodus of the queer community within and outside of Bangladesh. The 2016 murders of queer activists Xulhaz Mannan, the publisher of Bangladesh’s first printed queer magazine Roopbaan, and Mahbub Tonoy triggered this migration and was experienced first-hand by the first author of this paper who is currently seeking political asylum in the United States of America (USA). To document and reflect on this displacement, the authors engage in the process of autoethnography and creative practice: a video anthology created out of the edited footage from the stalled work and new material featuring the first author. This video artefact serves as a commentary on the nuances of refugee identity politics, displacement, ethics of storytelling, the creation of individual agency and how the generation of individual ‘trauma capital’, i.e. the value associated with trauma storytelling, displaces communal voice.
The Queer Displacement (video artwork) was specifically created for the Queer Displacements: Sexuality, Migration and Exile 2019 conference held on 13-14 November 2019. It was screened on Day 1, during Session 3: Documenting experiences: art, history, ethics of storytelling.
Queer Displacements conference final report
Read and sign on to the Canberra Statement affirming the acute protection needs of LGBTIQ+ forcibly displaced people and calling for a set of urgent reforms to ensure access to safety and justice for LGBTIQ+ asylum seekers and refugees.
QUT eprints for additional information.