Abstract
This chapter addresses the processes of construction, deconstruction, and reconstruction of gender identities of “people of non-heterosexual orientation” in contemporary migrations. The starting point is that, by determining what is forbidden and regulating what is allowed, laws and traditions establish the options and opportunities available for the construction of the life trajectory of everyone. This truism becomes particularly visible during migration. The author asserts that in the case of women and “people of non-heterosexual orientation”, migrations usually lead to drastic and profound changes. Since the rights that migrants hold considerably change from one nation-state to another, the process of integration into a foreign society requires them to rethink, sometimes from scratch, their identities and opportunities. Migration forces them to a new life: they are reborn into a new gender identity and have to reinvent themselves in order to adapt to it. The chapter argues that becoming aware of its arbitrariness not only saves us from the obligation to comply with pre-established gender roles, but also enables us to deconstruct many other cultural constructions and, ultimately, every cultural and social organization. The game of identity manipulations is finally presented as a tool to transform the experience of migrant’s marginalization into an opportunity for emancipation.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
To explore the limits and challenges of the current binary gendered system, please visit the webpage of the artist Naïel: www.naiel.net/. For further readings, see Judith Butler (2004).
- 2.
Gay, lesbian, bisexual and transsexual migration flows have always existed within and beyond each country’s borders. This is due to displacement from less tolerant areas and the goal of settling in more inclusive cities and metropolises. When such migration flows are large, they are usually described as the “gay diaspora”. Spain is not the only country affected by this phenomenon. Canada’s massive LGBT immigrations can also be considered a diaspora. While Spain and Canada are receptive to such migrations, Uganda, Nigeria and Russia are chasing out entire generations of non-heterosexual and non-gendered persons.
- 3.
Gender violence was defined and condemned by a specific law in 2004 (Ley Orgánica 1/2004); Marriage Equality was approved in 2005 (Ley 13/2005); the right to be addressed according to the Gender Identity instead of the sex assigned at birth was recognized and regulated in 2007 (Ley 3/2007).
- 4.
The terms cisgender and cissexual were coined to define the experience and identity of those who are not “trans”, as an alternative to the sexist use of the term “normal”, which would imply that transsexuals and transgenders are abnormal. Cisgender and cissexual are often used as synonyms. However, they refer to different experiences. “Cisgender” describes a person whose gender role or identity heteronormatively matches, according to the cultural patterns of the society of reference, the physical sex assigned at birth. A cissexual person, in contrast, is anybody who feels comfortable with the sexual anatomy s/he was born with. It is tempting to suppose that, at least, every cisgender is also cissexual; though, many transsexual persons are cisgender during some part of—or their entire—life. In addition, a cissexual person can either be a cisgender or a transgender.
- 5.
Even in the case of the Albanian sworn virgin, once women become the patriarchs of their families, they are still not considered equal to cissexual men nor offered the same opportunities. They are stripped of their sexuality, denied their right to love and are condemned to playing a gender role that they do not identify with in return for improved social status. This situation is similar to the experiences of heterosexual cissexual persons and many LGBTIQ persons of living in the closet.
- 6.
A representative example is presented by the cis-sexist attacks launched by the lesbian feminist Janice Raymond on the transsexual Sandy Stone in 1979 due to her leading of a feminist group, the Olivia Records. Whereas trans theorists and feminists agree on the disassociation of genders and sexes, trans theorist sometimes present gender as a mold into which we must fit, feminist critics usually understand gender as variable, changeable and arbitrary because it is socially constructed. Gender studies recognize that most people have both feminine and masculine traits and that different cultures do not agree on what “feminine” and “masculine” mean. Therefore, emancipation would come from depriving these traits of any binary gendered label that they were assigned and not from naturalizing or pursuing a masculine or feminine essence. However, the debate is more nuanced than just described, and many more positions are held, such as those of transfeminist critics who attempt to apply feminist discourses to transgender discourses, and vice versa (Scott-Dixon 2006).
- 7.
According to the Asexual Visibility & Education Network (2013), “asexuality is a sexual orientation. Asexual people have the same emotional needs as everybody else and are just as capable of forming intimate relationships”.
- 8.
To start exploring the recent raise of extremist all-phobic parties across Europe and USA, as well as a couple of African examples, about the explosive mixture represented by the fusion of nationalism with heterosexism, please see Faiola (2012), Traynor (2010), Stein (2012), McKaiser (2012), Ford and Allen (2012).
- 9.
A critique of the mono-ethnoculturalism of the Nation-States can be attempted also by drawing up a morphology of the frontier (Olmos 2009). Through the analysis of the notion of geopolitical and cultural frontiers at different times, contexts and societies, both the regulator role of frontiers in the relationship between identity and “otherness”—the identity of the other—as well as its relation with the processes of constructing, perceiving and attributing identities can be questioned (Troin 2003). In my previous research (Boccardi 2011), through the adoption of alternative and marginalized perspectives as a medium of contrast, I attempted to deconstruct the notions of citizenship and nationality, multiculturalism and civil rights, as well as to re-signify the phenomena of métissage and hybridization (Laplantine 1997; Mörner 1967; Ruano 2004) or to explore the difference between minoritized and minority groups or globalization and glocalization. The multiplication of perspectives is indeed a useful strategy in order to question hegemonic and mainstream thinking within social sciences. It can be implemented by promoting interdisciplinary as well as intercultural dialogues and discourses. Academically, fundamental issues should be analyzed considering perspectives from as many disciplines as possible. Working with interculturality and gender, these branches of knowledge should always be considered: anthropology and ethnography, gender and feminist studies, psychology and health, political, and social sciences, philosophy, linguistics, economics and law, literature and theories of translation. Interculturality should be approached by performing extensive multilingual and multicultural research to draw informations from as many societies and cultures as possible.
References
American Anthropological Association (AAA). (1947). Statement on human rights. American Anthropologist, 49(4), 539–543.
Amselle, J. (1990). Mestizo logics: Anthropology of identity in Africa and elsewhere. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Anderson, B. (1991). Imagined communities: Reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism. London: Verso (1983).
Anzaldua, G. (1999). Borderlands/La Frontera: The new mestiza. San Francisco: Aunt Lute Books.
Bauman, Z. (2005). Identidad. Buenos Aires: Losada.
Beasley, C. (2005). Gender & sexuality: Critical theories, critical thinkers. London: Sage Publications.
Berecz, T, & Domina, K. (2012). Domestic Extremism in Europe. The Athena Institute, http://www.athenainstitute.eu/pdf/EUR_MAP_STUDY_ENG_closed.pdf. Accessed 4 Feb 2013.
Berger, J. (2009). Questione di sguardi. Sette Inviti al Vedere tra Storia dell’Arte e Quotidianità. Torino: Bollati Beringhieri.
Bidney, D. (1974). Relativismo cultural. In D. L. Sillis (Ed.), Enciclopedia Internacional de las Ciencias Sociales (Vol. III, pp. 311–314). Madrid: Aguilar.
Billson, J. M. (1995). Keepers of the culture: The power of tradition in women’s lives. New York: Lexington Books.
Boccardi, R. S. (2011). Frontiera e Identità: Spunti per un’Analisi della Nozione di Frontiera come Limite o Spazio di Relazione. Napoli: Universitá degli Studi “L’Orientale”.
Brubaker, R. (1992). Citizenship and Nationhood in France and Germany. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Büschges, C., & Langue, F. (2005). Excluir para Ser: Procesos Identitarios y Fronteras Sociales en la America Hispanica (XVII–XVIII). Madrid: Iberoamericana.
Butler, J. (1990). Gender trouble: Feminism and the subversion of identity. New York: Routledge.
Butler, J. (1997). Merely cultural. Social Text, 52(53), 265–277.
Butler, J. (2004). Undoing gender. New York: Routledge.
Caldwell, C. (2010). Reflections on the revolution in europe: Can europe be the same with different people in it?. London: Penguin.
Carneiro, N. S., & Menezes, I. (2007). From an oppressed citizenship to affirmative identities. Journal of Homosexuality, 53(3), 65–82.
Cargnello, D. (2010). Alteritá e alienità. Introduzione alla Fenomenologia Antropoanalitica [1977]. Roma: Fioriti.
Carrillo, H. (2004). Sexual migration, cross-cultural sexual encounters, and sexual health. Sexuality Research & Social Policy, 1(3), 58–70.
Castro Morales, E. (1983). Los Cuadros de Castas de la Nueva España/Jahrbuch für Geschichte von Staat, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft Lateinamerikas. Köln: Böehlau Verlag.
Connell, R. (1995). Masculinities. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Connell, R. (2005). Masculinities. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Crocetti, G. (2008). Culture shock! United Arab Emirates. A survival guide to customs and etiquette. New York: Marshall Cavendish Corporation.
Cunin, E. (2003). Identidades a Flor de Piel. Lo ‘Negro’ entre Apariencias y Pertenencias: Mestizaje y Categorías Raciales en Cartagena. Bogotá: IFEA-ICANH-Uniandes-Observatorio del Caribe Colombiano.
Derrida, J. (2004). Il Monolinguismo dell’Altro. Milano: Raffaello Cortina Editore.
Deschamps, J. C. (1997). Attribution or explanations in everyday life. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 6(1), 7–24.
Dilley, P. (2002). Queer man on campus: A history of non-heterosexual college men 1945–2000. New York: Routledge.
Fabietti, U. (1998). L’identitá Etnica. Storia e Critica di un Concetto Equivoco. Roma: Carocci.
Fine, C. (2010). Delusions of gender: How our minds, society, and neurosexism create difference. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.
Faiola, A. (2012). Anti-immigrant golden dawn rises in greece. The Washington Post, October 20. http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2012-10-20/world/35500727_1_golden-dawn-greek-parliament-immigrant. Accessed 4 Feb 2013.
Ford, T., & Allen, B. (19 March 2012). Nobel peace prize winner defends law criminalising homosexuality in liberia. The Guardian. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/mar/19/nobel-peace-prize-law-homosexuality?INTCMP=SRCH. Accessed 4 Feb 2013.
Gliozzi, G. (1977). Adamo e il Nuovo Mondo. La Nascita dell’Antropologia come Ideologia Coloniale: Dalle Genealogie Bibliche alle Teorie Razziali (1500–1700). Firenze: La nuova Italia.
González Alcantud, J. A. (2006). Ser Mediterráneos: La Génesis de la Pluralidad Cultural en la Frontera Líquida. Granada: Al-Baraka.
Herskovits, M. J. (1948). Man and his works: The Science of cultural anthropology. New York: Knopf.
Hinds, H., Phoenix, A., & Stacey, J. (1992). Working out: New directions for women’s studies. London: The Falmer Press.
Hirsi Ali, A. (2006). Yo acuso: Defensa de la Emancipación de las Mujeres Musulmanas. Barcelona: Galaxia Gutenberg.
Jaggar, A. M. (1994). Living with contradictions: Controversies in feminist social ethics. Boulder: Westview Press.
Juliano, M. D. (1994). La construcción de la diferencia: los latinoamericanos. Papers, 43, 23–32.
Klesse, C. (2007). The spectre of promiscuity: Gay male and bisexual non-monogamies and polyamories. Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing.
Koser, K. (2009). Le migrazioni internazionali. Bologna: Il Mulino.
Kymlicka, W. (1991). Liberalism community and culture. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Kymlicka, W. (1995a). The rights of minority cultures. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Kymlicka, W. (1995b). Multicultural citizenship: A liberal theory of minority rights. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Kymlicka, W. (2006). Fronteras territoriales: una perspectiva liberal igualitarista. Madrid: Trotta.
Kymlicka, W. (2007). Multicultural odysseys: Navigating the new international politics of diversity. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Kymlicka, W., & Bashir, B. (2008). The politics of reconciliation in multicultural societies. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Kymlicka, W., & Norman, W. (2000). Citizenship in diverse societies. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
La Cecla, F. (2010). Modi bruschi. Antropologia del maschio. Milano: Elèuthera.
La Fountain-Stokes, L. (2004). De sexilio(s) y diáspora(s) homosexual(es) latina(s): El caso de la cultura puertorriqueña y nuyorican ‘queer’. Debate feminista, 15(29), 138–57.
La Fountain-Stokes, L. (2009). Queer ricans: Cultures and sexualities in the diaspora. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Laplantine, F., & Nouss, A. (1997). Le métissage. Paris: Flammarion.
López Sala, A. M. (2007). La ley de la frontera: Migraciones internacionales y control de flujos. Revista de Occidente, 316, 91–110.
Manalansan, M. F. (2003). Global divas: Filipino gay men in the diaspora. Durham: Duke University Press.
Maquieira, V. (1998). Cultura y derechos humanos de las mujeres. In P. Pérez Cantó (ed.) Las mujeres del Caribe en el umbral del 2000. Madrid, Dirección General de la Mujer, Comunidad de Madrid: 171–203.
McKaiser, E. (2 October 2012). Homosexuality un-African? The claim is an historical embarrassment. The Guardian. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/oct/02/homosexuality-unafrican-claim-historical-embarrassment?INTCMP=SRCH. Accessed 4 Feb 2013.
Millet, K. (1969). Sexual politics. London: Granada Publishing Limited.
Moore, H. (1991). Antropología y feminismo. Madrid: Cátedra.
Moré Martínez, I. (2007). La vida en la frontera. Madrid: Marcial Pons.
Mörner, M. (1967). Race mixture in the history of latin America. Boston: Little Brown.
Munt, S. (1998). Butch/femme: Inside lesbian gender. London: Cassell.
Nolin, C. (2006). Transnational ruptures: Gender and forced migration. Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing.
Olmos Aguilera, M. (Ed.). (2009). Antropologia de las fronteras: Alteridad, historia e identidad más allá de la línea. Mexico D.F.: Universidad Autonoma Metropolitana.
Osborne, R. (1996). ¿Son las mujeres una minoría?. Isegoría, 14, 79–93.
Patton, C., & Sanchez-Eppler, B. (2000). Queer diasporas. Durham: Duke University Press.
Remotti, F. (1996). Contro l’Identità. Roma: Laterza.
Richardson, D. (1998). Sexuality and citizenship. Sociology, 32(1), 83–100.
Roosens, E. E. (1989). Creating ethnicity: The process of ethnogenesis. Newbury Park: Sage.
Rossberry, W. (1991). Marxism and culture. In W. Brett (Ed.), The politics of culture (pp. 19–43). Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press.
Ruano Gutiérrez, M. (2004). Nuestras diferencias somos: Las castas sociales y sus diferentes significados. Sincronía 9(31). http://sincronia.cucsh.udg.mx/ruano04.htm.
Rubin, G. (1975). The traffic in women: Notes on the ‘political economy’ of sex. In R. Reiter (Ed.), Toward an anthropology of women (pp. 157–210). New York: Monthly Review Press.
Schama, S. (1987). The embarrassment of riches: An interpretation of dutch culture in the golden age. New York: Vintage.
Schurr, T. G. (2004). The peopling of the world: Perspectives from molecular anthropology. Annual Review of Anthropology, 33, 551–583.
Scott-Dixon, K. (2006). Trans/forming feminisms: Transfeminist voices speak out. Toronto: Sumach Press.
Stein, S. (20 October 2012). Tea party protests: ‘Ni**er’, ‘Fa**ot’ shouted at members of congress. The Huffington Post. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/20/tea-party-protests-nier-f_n_507116.html. Accessed 4 Feb 2013.
Tibi, B. (2003). Euro-islam. l’integrazione mancata. Venezia: Marsilio.
Tibi, B. (2008). Con il velo in europa?la turchia sulla strada dell’unione europea. Salerno: Salerno Editrice.
Traynor, I. (8 April 2010). Hungary party to follow european extremism’s move away from fringes. The Guardian. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/apr/08/jobbik-hungary-move-from-fringes. Accessed 4 Feb 2013.
Troin, J. F. (2003). Las metrópolis del Mediterráneo: Ciudades Bisagra, Ciudades Frontera. Barcelona: CIDOB.
Valcuende Del Rio, J. M. (1998). Fronteras, Territorios e Identificaciones Colectivas: Interacción Social, Discursos Políticos y Procesos Identidarios en la Frontera Sur Hispano-Portuguesa. Sevilla: Fundación Blas Infante.
Vermeulen, H., & Govers, C. (Eds.). (1994). The anthropology of ethnicity: Beyond “ethnic groups and boundaries”. Amsterdam: Het Spinhuis.
Washburn, W. E. (1987). Cultural relativism, human rights, and the AAA. American Anthropologist, 89(4), 939–943.
Weber, M. (2001). The protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism [1904]. Los Angeles: Roxbury Publishing.
Wilson, T. M., & Donnan, H. (1998). Border identities: Nation and state at international frontiers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Ye’Or, B. (2007). Eurabia. come l’europa è diventata anticristiana, antioccidentale, antiamericana, antisemita. Torino: Lindau/Libero.
Legislation
Ley Orgánica 1/2004, of the 28th of December, de Medidas de Protección Integral contra la Violencia de Género (B.O.E. núm. 313, 29th of December 2004).
Ley 13/2005, of the 1st of July, por la que se modifica el Código Civil en materia de derecho a contraer matrimonio (B.O.E. núm. 157, 2nd of July 2005). Available at: http://www.boe.es/boe/dias/2005/07/02/pdfs/A23632-23634.pdf. Accessed 4 Feb 2013.
Ley 3/2007, of the15th of March, reguladora de la rectificación registral de la mención relativa al sexo de las personas (B.O.E. núm. 65, 16th of March 2007) Available at: http://www.boe.es/boe/dias/2007/03/16/pdfs/A11251-11253.pdf. Accessed 4 Feb 2013.
Links
Asexual Visibility & Education Network, http://www.asexuality.org/home/.
Acknowledgments
Special thanks go to Giovanna Fassetta, Vanessa Baires and Niki Boehm for their invaluable help in the proofreading of the manuscript as well as to MariaCaterina La Barbera, Maria Isabel Jociles and Fernando Villaamil for believing in my research. My most heartfelt thanks goes to my first—and hopefully last—husband, irreplaceable partner in uncountable inspiring discussions and beloved handyman Miguel Araujo.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2015 Springer International Publishing Switzerland
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Boccardi, R. (2015). Processes of Constructing and Deconstructing Gender Identities in Contemporary Migrations. In: La Barbera, M. (eds) Identity and Migration in Europe: Multidisciplinary Perspectives. International Perspectives on Migration, vol 13. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-10127-9_7
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-10127-9_7
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-10126-2
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-10127-9
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and LawSocial Sciences (R0)