The Knowledge of The New Locals - Introduction
A queer anthropology on migration and gender identity
Written by Kasun Gunawardana
CHAPTER 1
“In the middle of difficulty, lies opportunity” - Albert Einstein
Long before I became the biographer of this publication, before vocabulary was built into my system, and decades before I journeyed to Barcelona and became a ‘New Local’,
I was a queer child, making sense of this world, through observation and silent participation.
Symbols, body language, patterns, and intuition were my best friends, and they aided me to recognise safe individuals and safe environments. I still wonder if everyone else operated the same. As children, did we all choose our peers based on the energy we felt from them? How did you measure feeling safe to be seen, and to exist among others?
What I didn’t realise at the time was that I was gathering the tools to navigate a world that will soon point me out as different, a defect, and criminal.
As a child I was an observer, I taught myself knowledge and skills through watching. That was the only way to exist without being much noticed. And I believe today my visual curational knowledge, creative disciplines and my analytical mind all stem from this ability to sit still and analyse safety, and what is appropriate.
And what did I do when I was in a safe space? I curated it! I curated the culture, the aesthetics, the values, and that is where love existed, the light was pure and no monsters in the darkness lurking. You would notice that about Queer children if you have paid enough attention, that they are pioneers of themselves.
I began to realise that the world around me wasn’t built for me and the disillusionment unravelled. I started to wonder if there is really a place for me. And learning that you may never be fully seen or be able to love was an aching truth to my childhood heart.
I was a child with a broken heart before the world could ever break it.
Born to two progressive individuals with strong cultural values and traditions in a small suburban town in the western province of Sri Lanka, I was raised around etiquette, hospitality and ancestral knowledge, values that respected the journey of another. This was what I had known as identity.
Awareness and observation were in the core of my culture, but then there was protocol. And as much as my identity was culturally nourished, the colonial hangover and protocol was exhausting.
And as I grew up, I was told that I was a boy just like my father, though at most times, I felt like a girl just like my mother. There were borders drawn around my gender and they felt unfairly irrational even to my little mind.
I learnt at a very young age that queerness was derogatory, lacked personality and was called sissy. Family members often flinched at topics surrounding individuals of gender diversity. School would police queer students and so would your peers. There was shame built around me, my body, my voice, and my appearance. I was looked at with pity, sometimes with disgust, and often as entertainment. I have read that the same water that hardens the egg softens the potato. And I have been both.
I was a child with a hard boiled egg for where my heart should have been.
Borders are known to human kind in many palpable ways. We introduce borders and boundaries in order to keep ourselves safe. But often boundaries and borders overlook the greater cause. And compassion is lost.
I began to believe that there is a world out there far away from my reach where everybody could be themselves. Take a moment to think about what that place is like for you, and ask yourself, am I there?
My identity had no borders and it felt expansive. My connection with the world defied gender, and it defied borders. Arriving in Barcelona, Spain, I was starting to see the light at the end of a tunnel of a journey that felt like a nightmare with all the people I loved and lived for. After months of bureaucracy and a year later, not knowing if I would really get to be here, I at last received my visa 4 days prior to the start of university. There I arrived the night before school began with two suitcases, leaving everything else behind.
Just as most people, I too had loved and lost, wounded and healed, said goodbye to connections and moments that in my gut knew would not be there when I return. But I was also hungry to live again.
Over time my queer body began to see its glow. My first name is Poorna and it means ‘pure’ in my language Sinhala. And I really felt as if I was living up to my name finally as I felt valid to live as I am, I started to feel authentic. I began to own my body. The autonomy of my expression felt valued. Practicing my rights became a language of love, and no more about protesting for freedom and for my body. The water around me softened me this time. I feel permeable.
My head suddenly had space for ideas, for courage, to try things I couldn’t before. My head that used to be filled with fear, anxiety, and vigilance felt like a home I finally wanted to return to.
And becoming the author of this book was a necessity I felt as I began to realise that I had finally arrived at the right atmosphere to a place where I could share our roadmap as The knowledge of the New Locals.
This queer anthropology on migration and gender identity will explore what it means to be born in an environment where your identity feels in exile. Having to appropriate yourself, for reasons that reach back to capitalism and colonisation and patriarchy, and constructs that truly don’t belong to your heart, is the unfortunate unspoken rule. I shall dismantle the interferences we face on our journey, the aid, and the knowledge we carried as we regenerate through migration.
So as I began this journey, the knowledge I brought with me kept me safe, healthy and visible, thereby may this book and its character individuals show you that colouring outside the lines, moving across borders, and being visible through it all is where the story begins for some of us.
This book will teach you that when ‘nurture’ is given, ‘nature’ takes its way.
CHAPTER 2
I am a queer individual who began to notice the patterns of the lived experiences of life around me.
Whilst conventional global skill migration streamlines success of an individual through skills and received benefits, Queer migration relies on eco-systems that protects and helps nourish the development of individuals through societal acceptance. Queer individuals are attracted to places that allow personal growth and expression. It is fundamental for us to feel safe and I assume so does everybody. But safety is not just in a system, it is in the lived experiences of the people around you. It is human nature to want to be around people who care for you.
Remembering myself at the age of 9, while waiting for my father in the school field in my home town, I watched planes in the distant sky and imagined where they must go, and about the passengers on board. Were they holding champagne, looking at travel photos, before they would land in an iconic city where life was like in the magazines.
Life in Sri Lanka in the 90s was slow, warm and reflective. There was space between activities, places, people and even your identities. School carried one, your family knew one and then there was the one that I secretly nurtured and protected at all costs. And as I watched those planes fly over the sky above me, so would these thoughts drift.
It was living two lives, one that had to agree that life is black and white and the other who saw life in technicolour. I was afraid to ask questions, because if the questions were too open, others would see my depth. Why isn’t ‘Queer’ a synonym for ‘Deep’?
It feels as though I have lived many lives before I can now live in alignment with myself. But before that, phases of life arrived and my gender was on trial, career interests became an act of rebellion and my identity was seen as a threat. It only finally came together through crossing literal borders where life suddenly did feel like in the magazines. It was the homecoming to my queer-self because I was a queer child who lived inside a vault deep in my body. And they lived in the darkness for so long before they were able to see the light.
My journey is one of many. And as I arrived in 2024 I learnt that in the 21st century timeline, many had arrived and queer migration has indeed been a topic of interest well nourished. I saw Pride for the first-time, I was there! The same me who watched those planes go right above my head, I got on one, and I am here now…
So as this book became a reality, we searched for others. For those narratives across borders of others who sought independence through migration and regeneration. And we began to learn about the incredible courage, the identity defining experiences and the heavy details of migrational realities. Creativity of queer artists is multifaceted, layered and transformational. These artists in this book lived moments in exile, not owning their bodies and their minds. And on our quest to find stories to share, we met Carlos Da Silva who defied gravity, and not just once but twice.
Author - Kasun Gunawardana
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