[Event] BelMix Seminar Series 2024 (II): 3 - Same-sex Marriage and Mobility in African Societies by Dr. Apostolos Andrikopoulos (University College London, UK)

Same-sex Marriage and Mobility in African Societies

by Dr. Apostolos Andrikopoulos (University College London, UK)

Abstract: The legal recognition of same-sex unions in many countries worldwide has extended marriage-based migration rights to same-sex couples. This development has even had an impact in some African countries where homosexuality is criminalized, creating a new pathway for migration through same-sex marriage. In a particular slum in Ghana, young men in transnational same-sex partnerships envision a future abroad through same-sex marriage. Their desire to leave, however, stems not only from a wish to reunite with their same-sex partners. Like other aspiring migrants, they anticipate that a life abroad will improve prospects for themselves and their families. Marriage to a gay man in Europe offers a path to fulfilling their migratory aspirations, even as many of these men are or will be married to women through customary and often unofficial means in Ghana. The circulation of resources within these men’s networks, enabled by migration through same-sex marriage, often leads to complex transnational arrangements that contribute to crafting meaningful and fulfilling lives for these Ghanaian men, their European partners, as well as their wives and families in Ghana.

Bio: Apostolos Andrikopoulos is a Lecturer in Social Anthropology at University College London (UCL). Previously, he was a postdoctoral researcher at Harvard University and the University of Amsterdam. As a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Global Fellow, he conducted a comparative ethnographic project in Ghana and Kenya on migration through same-sex partnerships. He is the author of Argonauts of West Africa: Unauthorized Migration and Kinship Dynamics in a Changing Europe (University of Chicago Press, 2023), a book based on his dissertation, which received the IMISCOE Maria Baganha Best Dissertation Award.