Description
An all-too-common response to bisexual+ people disclosing their sexuality is that they are mistaken or that their identity is only temporary. Beyond harming bisexuals as knowers, when bordering actors disbelieve bisexual+ people seeking asylum about their sexuality, this can subject them to detention and deportation. As the state denies bisexual+ people’s knowledge of their sexuality, it similarly denies racialised and migratised communities’ knowledge of their experiences of racism and violence. In June 2023, uprisings erupted across France in response to the police murder of Nahel Merzouk, a 17-year-old of Moroccan and Algerian descent, but state officials repeatedly disputed the existence of structural police violence or racism. Conducting fieldwork on bisexual+ asylum-seeking in France at the time, I was struck by the parallels between the epistemic injustice the state inflicts on populations it deems excessive, and the violent consequences from police and bordering actors that epistemic injustice simultaneously enables and obscures. This paper analyses photographs and observations from Paris and its suburbs during the period of the revolts. From this analysis, I identify links drawn by French demonstrators between police and bordering violence and unpack how “republican universalism” allows state authorities to deny the experiences of bisexual+, racialised, and migratised communities, in turn enabling further state violence.
