This thesis explores how LGBTQ*-Salvadoran applicants for international protection experience the influence of their own sexual orientation and gender identities in relation to the underlying motives behind their migration. In addition, it intends to draw some conclusions from the respondents' statements, gained insights from observations and what was found in literature. For this, two Salvadoran LGBTQ*- applicants for international protection, who applied for asylum in Belgium in the year 2019, were interviewed. Their discourses were analysed by using a thematic analysis.The study exposes the narratives and motivations which led them to flee their homeland and find a new life in Belgium.

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In recent years, the field of queer asylum studies has slowly been expanding in different contexts across the world, with numerous methodologies and various topics of focus. In Sweden, the academic work in this area has mainly focused on legal perspectives. Providing a different perspective, this thesis examines the situation and experiences of LGBTQ asylum seekers and refugees in Linköping, Sweden through a community-based collage project. It examines how collages can be used as a method for research and a tool for community building within this context, and explores the experiences of LGBTQ asylum seekers and refugees in Linköping, Sweden, using individual and group collages. Using the concept of bricolage, the thesis ties together various artworks with short narratives and analytical interpretations. Together, they form a fragmented, in itself collage-like insight into this community. Through these fragments, the thesis reflects on the themes of migration, belonging, survival, and identity. Additionally, it explores questions of home, family, refugeeness, mess, homonormativity and representation. I argue that commonly used narratives of migration often do not fit this group, as they face highly complex forms of oppression based on their intersecting identities. Furthermore, the thesis examines the use of collage as a method by looking into the ways collage can negotiate methodological issues like accessibility and researcher accountability, how it can function as a tool for community building, and how it can be used to allow a community researcher to negotiate their positionality in an easier way. I argue that the use of collage has many benefits and that the use of the collage method in this thesis has enriched the research.

This thesis analyses materials – a set of guidelines and a presentation – provided for officials  who assess claims related to sexual orientation and gender identity within the Australian  government’s Department for Immigration and Border Protection. The analysis is conducted  using critical discourse analysis to see if the lexicon shows a white heterosexual bias, and if it  does, how the bias is manifested within the guidelines, especially within the context of the  gender binary. The theoretical framework primarily uses Critical Race theory, but also  combines elements of Said’s Orientalism, and absence and presence theory. The results show  that the guidelines do have a white heterosexual bias, which manifests itself in the form of,  Western superiority, stereotypes about LGBT+ people, as well as an undertheorized portrayal  of the gender binary. The findings contribute to research within the queer asylum field,  especially with regards to research on migration from a non-gender-binary perspective.