‘Soft-Powering LGBTQI Diaspora Engagement’: Exploring Global Ireland (2020–2025)

While diaspora engagement is not new, recent state efforts to engage specific communities, such as LGBTQI communities, invite renewed critical attention. Across Europe, states adopt varied approaches to LGBTQI diaspora engagement, shaped by national histories, political climates, and global reputational goals. Ireland, for example, stands out as a notable case, having articulated a commitment to engaging with the ‘LGBTQI diaspora’ in their Global Ireland (2020–2025) strategy. This research note critically explores this inclusion as both a symbolic inclusion effort and strategy of soft power for progressive nation-branding. Using Ireland as a case study, and drawing on insights from our document analysis, we interrogate how LGBTQI communities are represented, addressed, and instrumentalised in Ireland’s official diaspora policy. We ask: how are LGBTQI communities ‘marketed to’ in state strategy documents? And what forms of inclusion are offered, and for what purposes? In doing so, we test the value of homonationalism and soft power as analytic tools for understanding the intentions behind LGBTQI diaspora engagement. Overall, the research note contributes to scholarship in queer diaspora studies, encouraging further interdisciplinary dialogue which questions how inclusion is framed, and for whom, within current state-led diaspora strategies.