UNCORRECTED PROOFS Reviews / Comptes rendus Real Queer? Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Refugees in the Canadian Refugee Apparatus by David A. B. Murray, Rowman & Littlefield International Ltd., London and New York, 2016, 194 pp., paper $49.35 (ISBN 978-1783484409) DOI: 10.1111/cag.12374 Canada is often presented as a progressive place of human rights protection, so that even conservative politicians have mobilized the narrative of Canada as a welcoming place for those seeking refuge on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) persecution. For over two decades the Canadian refugee apparatus has recognized such claims under the Refugee Convention. Media cover- age of this category of migration celebrates Canada as a global leader in LGBT rights. Yet, this is an era in which security apparatuses in the Global North, including Canada, are increasingly aimed at keeping Others out, marked by growing “suspicion, surveil- lance, and extradition” of border-crossers (p. 164). In this climate, SOGI asylum claimants are also challenged to prove the authenticity of their SOGI claims. In Real Queer?, anthropologist David Murray recounts and analyzes how SOGI refugee claimants learn to navigate the complex refugee determina- tion system in Canada. Murray observes how SOGI claimants learn to be LGBT in ways that are legible in the Canadian legal context to those deciding the claims—namely, refugee board members. Board members’ perceptions of what it is to be authenti- cally LGBT are shaped by cultural understandings that may not align with the diverse backgrounds shaping the identities of refugee claimants. This diversity is illustrated through the stories of claim- ants (drawn from interviews), introduced in the first chapter and traced through the conclusion. Inter- view data are complemented by Murray’s self- reflexive participant-observation as a volunteer in SOGI refugee support organizations, and observa- tion of Immigration and Refugee Board hearings. As geographers continue to dwell on the possibilities of ethnographic methods, one key contribution of this book methodologically is the way in which docu- ments and documentation are taken seriously. While geographers have certainly taken maps, policy documents, and archival materials seriously, we have been less attentive to the ways other types of documents and forms of documentation are also assembled to produce space. Murray draws on Jasbir Puar’s theorization of “homonationalism” as a key organizing concept in his critique of the Canadian refugee apparatus’s nationalist discourse, which refugee claimants are expected to gratefully perform. “Homonationalism” refers to how the protection of classed and raced forms of gender and sexual orientation is invoked in nationalistic narratives in tandem with the con- struction of Other countries as backwards and bigoted. SOGI persecution in Other (predominantly Global South) countries becomes the foil for progressiveness, freedom, and protection in the United States (for Puar) or Canada (in Real Queer?), overlooking the role of colonialism in the cultural and legal categorizing of sexual orientation and gender identities in many Global South countries. In this book, experiences in Toronto stand in for Canada more broadly, though it is unclear to what extent the experiences of SOGI claimants in other Canadian regions may be different. In many ways, this reflects the slippage of scales common in the homonationalist “Queer migration to national liber- ation” narratives identified by Murray, and is similar to the home-homeland conflations critiqued by feminist geographers. Official claimant narratives are shaped to highlight the past “home” as a place of non-belonging and fear, and Canada as the claim- ants true “home.” Feelings of belonging in specific SOGI community associations in Canada are often extrapolated to the nation. Yet many claimants’ experiences are ambivalent: there are places of community and belonging in countries of origin that are missed by refugee claimants, and places of non- belonging and insecurity in the “free and safe” Canadian context when claimants encounter homo- phobia, transphobia, racism, and economic inequal- ities. Murray’s critical discussion of “The Challenge of Home” (Chapter 7) may be of particular interest to 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 The Canadian Geographer / Le G eographe canadien 2017, xx(xx): 1–2 DOI: 10.1111/cag.12374 © 2017 Canadian Association of Geographers / L'Association canadienne des g eographes