The Struggle to Be Gay-in Mexico, for Example

1. Auflage 2024
ISBN: 978-0-520-39757-6
Verlag: University of California Press

Buch, Englisch, 280 Seiten, Trade Paperback, Format (B × H): 229 mm x 152 mm, Gewicht: 386 g

Being gay is not a given. Through a rigorous ethnographic inquiry into the material foundations of sexual identity, The Struggle to Be Gay makes a compelling argument for the centrality of social class in gay life—in Mexico, for example, and by extension in other places as well.

Known for his writings on the construction of sexual identities, anthropologist and cultural studies scholar Roger N. Lancaster ponders four decades of visits to Mexican cities. In a brisk series of reflections combining storytelling, ethnography, critique, and razor-edged polemic, he shows, first, how economic inequality affects sexual subjects and subjectivities in ways both obvious and subtle, and, second, how what it means to be de ambiente—“on the scene” or “in the life”—has metamorphosed under changing political-economic conditions. The result is a groundbreaking intervention into ongoing debates over identity politics—and a renewal of our understanding of how identities are constructed, struggled for, and lived.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Lancaster, Roger N.

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Spezielle Soziologie Familiensoziologie
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Soziologie Allgemein
• Sozialwissenschaften Ethnologie | Volkskunde Volkskunde Historische & Regionale Volkskunde
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Soziale Gruppen/Soziale Themen Gender Studies: Homosexualität, LGBTQ+

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction: When the Music Stops

PART I. PREDICAMENT AND CRISIS: THE STRUGGLE FOR SELF-DETERMINATION

1. Moment of Truth

2. A Provisional Answer to the Question

3. Life’s Rich Pageant

4. Commonplaces

5. Precarious Lives

PART II. AMBIENTE AND AMBIGUITY: THE STRUGGLE FOR WHAT ELUDES

6. Fable of Rapport

7. Identity and Its Discontents

8. They Lived in a Different Time from Us
9. Putos

10. Postcards from the Ambiente

11. Urban Tribes

12. A Tale of Two Cities

Conclusion: The Horizons of Gay Identity

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Über Autor(innen)

Roger N. Lancaster is Professor of Anthropology and Cultural Studies at George Mason University. He is author of Life is Hard and Sex Panic and the Punitive State, among other books.