Queer Diasporas and the Migration Experience

For queer members of the Balkan diaspora, migration is rarely a single story. It is layered — shaped by the violence of war and displacement, by the conservatism of communities left behind, and by the often ambivalent welcome of the countries that received them. This series centres those layered experiences, asking what it means to be queer, Balkan, and in diaspora all at once.

We speak with queer women, LGBTQ+ activists, writers, and researchers whose lives sit at the intersection of sexuality, ethnicity, and migration. Their stories trace the quiet negotiations, the ruptures, and the acts of self-definition that shape queer diasporic life — from the family dinner table to the borders of Europe.

Episodes explore themes of visibility and invisibility, the politics of return, intergenerational silence, and the ways in which queer Balkan identities are being claimed, contested, and reimagined in diaspora.

What does it mean to write oneself into history when your existence sits at the margins — queer, Bosnian, Muslim, and foreign?