Navigating the Sense of Belonging: Explorations among Queer Middle Eastern Individuals in Sweden

Sammanfattning: This thesis explores the ways in which Middle Eastern LGBTQ+ individuals living in Sweden navigate their sense of belonging. The interview-based approach focuses on the narratives and lived experiences of self-identified Middle Eastern queers and their feelings of attachment in relation to ethnic and queer communities in Sweden as well as Swedish society. The findings show that the sense of belonging among the participants is established in a multi-faceted process of navigating between different modes of attachment to people and communities. The majority of the study participants do not see themselves as belonging to any communities in Sweden, neither ethnic nor queer. Their relationship with Swedish society is complex and ambiguous. The suspension between different categories of belonging and the peripheral positionality result in a state of in-betweenness among many participants. The study investigates the factors that shape the sense of belonging in ethnic and queer communities as well as Swedish society identifying fear of discrimination, loneliness, difficulties establishing friendships, participation in communal activities, and ubiquitous coming out paradigm as the central themes in my interlocutors’ narratives. The research demonstrates that belonging is performative and thus redefined based on one’s positionality in a given social setting.