Sexuality as a rights-claiming object and the politics of humanitarianism LAMES (Laboratoire méditerranéen de sociologie) at Maison Méditerranéenne des Sciences de lHomme

Aujourdhui, lhumanitaire est formé dun réseau dinstitutions, de pratiques et de discours possédant des logiques particulières, indépendantes en apparence bien quinterconnectées, donnant lieu à un appareil efficace de pouvoir… Loin de laction spontanée, urgente, isolée et imprévisible, laction humanitaire appartient à un système devenu complexe qui suppose des savoirs, des techniques, des discours, des disciplines, des institutions et des individus. L action humanitaire trouve ses ressources théoriques dans des disciplines comme le droit, la médecine, léconomie, mais aussi dans léthique et dans la politique. Le dispositif humanitaire agit dans un champ dans lequel évoluent également dautres dispositifs (Emil Cock, 2003) Today, the humanitarian consists of a network of institutions, practices and discourses with particular and independent logics that are seemingly well interconnected, giving rise to an effective device of power…Far from spontaneous, urgent, isolated and unpredictable action, humanitarian action belongs to a system that has become complex that involves knowledges, techniques, discourses, disciplines, institutions and individuals. Humanitarian action finds its theoretical resources in disciplines such as law, medicine, economics, but also in ethics and politics. The humanitarian dispositif is in a field from within which other dispositives also evolve (translation and emphasis mine).

There is in France a facile moralism. For example, I know many in politics who are not against sexwork, but they d never admit it because this might prevent them from retaining power. This easy moralism guarantees their position of power. (Gisella trans activist for LGBT migrants in Paris, March 2014) Its important for me to pay attention to how the system of humanitarian interventions put the blame on the individual, who tries to use the story that the humanitarians want to hear. So people think that they need to regret what they did or who they have been in the past, its like me pretending that I wasnt a sexworker in the past. (Gisella, March 2014)

Government The set of procedures established and actions conducted in order to manage, regulate, and support the existence of human beings: government includes but exceeds the intervention of the state, local administrations, international bodies, and political institutions more generally (Fassin, 2012)

Sexual humanitarianism operates by containing through social interventions the mobility of migrant groups that are strategically essentialised and othered as pure victims of sexual oppression and exploitation. As migrants nuanced understandings and experiences of ambivalence, vulnerability and resilience are obfuscated, only a minority of them receives appropriate support through sexual humanitarian social interventions, which tend to exacerbate rather than reduce migrants vulnerability to exploitation (Mai, forthcoming).

Sexual humanitarianism is the set of discourses and practices used by the systems of institutions (governmental, non-governmental and academic), whose raison d être is in the imperative of intervening to end the suffering to which sexual minorities and other forms of gender and sexual-subalternised Others are subjected.

From discourse of Social Protection to the practice of Border Control

Culturisation of homophobia: naturalising violence against sexual and gender minorities and linking it to a country/culture - Its a cultural problem…nothing can be done about it

Biographical Borders (Mai, 2013) Somatic Borders (Giametta, forthcoming) The former emerge in the telling of ones story to be legally recognised and have ones rights validated; it is the story itself that materialises access or denial to the borders gates. The latter are defined by the evidence of violence that the body (soma) and psyche carry.