Name
Searching for Belonging and Living with Saudade: Mapping Emotions in Brazil-To-Canada LGBTQ+ Migration
Date & Time
Thursday, May 22, 2025, 10:15 AM - 10:30 AM
Description
How do the complex migratory experiences of LGBTQ+ migrants from Brazil to Canada illustrate spatially contingent queer emotional processes? Brazilian LGBTQ+ geographies and mobilities are complex, diverse, and emotionally charged. Having been denied place-making and the safe (re)production of their identities in public and private places, many Brazilians migrate to Canada, through the diversity of means available to them. Therefore, this research arises from a need to explore both the structural and the emotional factors driving this migratory movement forward and its continuations and transformations as LGBTQ+ Brazilians create new worlds in Canada. There is a spectrum of emotions produced and transformed throughout the queer migration journey, perhaps much more diverse than what has been explored so far in the literature. I propose an exploration of this queer migratory movement that understands that migration is not an anemic process, but one that is articulated through intense and varied emotions. The research highlights the lusophone feeling of saudade (a longing for somebody, someplace, sometime), which can be both embodied and placed, while acting as an articulation for Brazilian queer im/mobilities. This qualitative research is structured at the intersection of queer and emotional geographies and its data collection is composed of a two-stage process: collection of data by gathering stories through semi-structured interviews and emotional mapmaking, followed by sharing collective experiences about saudade through a photovoice and focus group.
Location Name
Mackenzie (ME) 3165
Session Type
Oral Presentation
Abstract ID
129
Speaker Name
Leonardo Martins Cavalcanti Furtado
Speaker Organization
York University
Session Name
CS150 Geographies of Migration