‘ Welcome to Chechnya ’

Tethered solidarity and the imperial politics of queer persecution

Datos Bibliográficos

ID21641454
AutoresTatsiana Shchurko (0000-0001-8844-7189, University of South Florida, autor de correspondencia)
Año2026
Páginas1-23
Fecha de publicación2026-07-09
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaIdentities (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 1070-289X • E-ISSN: 1547-3384
EditorialInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/1070289x.2026.2700886
OpenAlexW7167802149
IdiomaEN
Referencias citadas36

The persecution of LGBTQ people in Chechnya has become a prominent symbol of global queer solidarity through the documentary Welcome to Chechnya. This article argues that the film not only documents anti-LGBTQ violence but also shapes the political terms through which that violence is understood. Drawing on queer feminist and anti-imperialist scholarship, I develop the concept of ‘tethered solidarity’ to describe forms of solidarity that remain attached to liberal regimes of visibility, recognition, and rescue while leaving broader structures of power largely unexamined. Through a critical reading of the documentary, I examine how it constructs legible victims, privileges humanitarian rescue, and foregrounds spectacular violence while marginalizing the colonial histories, militarized gender regimes, and geopolitical conditions that shape contemporary Chechnya. I argue that queer persecution cannot be understood apart from Russian colonialism, authoritarian state-building, and racialized border regimes, and call for an anti-imperialistl approach to queer solidarity that extends beyond rescue towards structural transformation

Authoritarianism · Geopolitics · Persecution · Politics · Power (physics) · Queer · Solidarity · Gender, Security, and Conflict · LGBTQ Health, Identity, and Policy · Soviet and Russian History