Gay Expats in Buenos Aires, Dubai, and London: The Intersection of Privileged Migration and Marginalized Sexualities across Socio-legal Contexts

Join us for a talk by Ryan Centner, Associate Professor of Human Geography & Urban Studies at the London School of Economics.

Prof. Centner's talk comparatively examines the experiences of relatively privileged migrants (“expats”) who are also sexual minorities (in this case, cisgender gay men) across the varied social and legal contexts of Buenos Aires, Dubai, and London. As very differently situated global cities, this set of environments presents an illuminating puzzle for understanding how “gay expats” navigate creating lifeworlds abroad, what kinds of communities they foster, and how they interact with senses of “the global gay” as well as local conditions and interlocutors. The talk draws out key features of Buenos Aires expatriate-local dynamics, especially as related to sexuality, juxtaposing these findings with the Dubai and London cases to grasp the particularities of each social and legal configuration as they affect these simultaneously privileged and marginalized migrants.

Ryan Centner researches and lectures on sexualities, migration, cities, development, infrastructure, and cultural change. He is co-editor of the forthcoming Oxford Handbook of Urban Sociology, and photo-essay editor for Contexts: Sociology for the Public, This talk draws from his ethnographic manuscript-in-progress about expatriate gay men living in Buenos Aires, Dubai, and London. Beyond these projects, as a fieldworker he mostly focuses on Latin America and the Pacific Northwest of the US/Canada.

Discussant: Landon Lauder, PhD Candidate in Sociology Moderator: Ana Villarreal, Assistant Professor of Sociology Co-sponsors: The BU Sociology Department and the BU Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies (WGS) Program

When 2:30 pm to 3:20 pm on Wednesday, October 25, 2023
Building Pardee School of Global Studies, 121 Bay State Road
Contact Name Elizabeth Amrien
Contact Organization Center for Latin American Studies
Fees Free
Speakers Landon Lauder, PhD Candidate in Sociology, Ana Villarreal, Assistant Professor of Sociology