1,721,005 research outputs found
A Journey beyond Normativity: The Syncretic Possibilities of Trans StudiesA Journey beyond Normativity
No full textAttraverso e oltre le maschilità subordinate: Performatività e soggettivazione nella produzione delle maschilità di uomini GBTQ+
Get PDFScholarship in the field of critical studies on men and masculinities rarely took into consideration the way in which men who identify in non-normative sexualities and genders are actively involved in the production of masculinity. The few works that explored this topic from the point of view of critical studies on men and on masculine people focused mainly on homosexual men and, to a lesser extent, on trans men to define if and to what extent they reproduce the gender norms around which the exaltation of masculinity is founded. The focal point that emerges from this literature is that, by internalizing the rules relating to masculinity, these subjectivities find themselves in a condition of irreconcilability between the urge to define themselves as masculine and the risk of being continually feminized because of their structural distance from the subject around to which these norms gravitate, that is the heterosexual man cisgender, giving for this reason place to contradictory forms of masculinity. Within this frame, men who identify in non-normative sexualities and genders do not seem to have an active role in the production of masculinity. Placed in a position of necessary exclusion from the field in which such production takes place, they can only reflect the dynamics or reject them, but also, in this case, they do not produce a significant transformation in gender norms. Starting from these considerations, I have built a research project aimed at problematizing the way in which the production of masculinity is articulated in the ways in which men who recognize themselves in a non-normative sexuality or genders give meaning and materiality to their identification. From a methodological point of view, the research was carried out by integrating three qualitative methods: (1) the analysis of 20 free diaries lasting 3-6 months, produced online by men aged between 20 and 29 years that identify in a non-normative gender or sexuality; (2) an ethnographic research, carried out over a period of 8 months within contexts where the presence of LGBTQ+ people was explicitly thematised; (3) a auto-ethnographic research, which was articulated both through the use of a personal diary and by retrieving previous personal documents. The analysis of the material highlighted 4 ways of configuring the process of production of masculinity. The configuration called "production of an ideal masculinity" is articulated through the production of a "real" masculinity which is placed defined as privileged over feminized positions. In the second configuration, "forms of identification with the feminine", femininity, constructed as an essentialized property, is positively valued as a compensation for negative aspects of masculinity. In the third configuration, "non-normative sexualities and genders as protest masculinities", the heterosexual and cisgender masculine subject is displaced from the hegemonic position in favour of masculinities rooted in an essentialized view of non-normative sexualities and genders. Finally, the fourth configuration, "disidentifications from masculinity", refers to practices of subjectivation which advance an instance of disarticulation of one's own identification as a man
Forgotten survivors: analysis of the phenomenon of domestic violence and operative proposals to take charge of transsexual and lesbian women
No full textThe aim of this work is to analyse Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) in cisgender lesbian women and heterosexual trans women . We have chosen to focus on these different phenomena because both of them reveal the insufficiency of the classic power and control wheel created by feminist anti-violence organisers in order to analyse, understand and counteract domestic violence. In addition, the strict use of classical categories developed by the study of violence in opposite-sex couples has shown its limits too, as we will affirm in the “definition” paragraph. We are referring to lesbians and trans women from within a “strategical essentialist” view, namely a way to present subordinate or marginalised social groups focusing (temporary) on a number of core elements and putting aside local differences in order to forge a sense of collective identity, and to create solidarity toward a specific social problem (Spivak 1987). As stated by Phillips (2010), strategic essentialism is a way to “[...] invoke a collective category – like the subaltern or women – while simultaneously criticising the category as theoretically unviable. Though she [n.d.a. Spivak] subsequently distanced herself from what she saw as misuses of the notion of strategic essentialism, the idea that we may have to ‘take the risk of essence’ in order to have any political purchase remains an important theme in feminist theory and politics” (Phillips 2010, p.48). In the first part of this paper we will discuss the topic of the definition of IPV, starting from a critique of the traditional rigid definition, grounded on a gender-based heteronormative framework. We will propose a contextual definition based on a postmodern intersectional framework, in accordance with the literature about LGBTQ IPV (David & Glass 2011; Greenberg 2012; Ristok 2005; Courvant & Cook-Daniels 1998). In the following section we will present the theoretical framework which underpins our interpretation of the problem of IPV and, in relation to survivors, draw upon the : coercive control model (Stark 1995), minority stress model (Mayer 1995) and affirmative therapy models. Furthermore, we will apply the minority stress model to analyse the specific features of discrimination against LGBTQ persons. In the final part we will apply the conceptual tools provided by the abovementioned theoretical models and we will focus separately on the analysis of the peculiar characteristics of IPV towards lesbians and trans women trying to take into consideration the social inequalities that contribute to the establishment of an oppressive relationship. Finally, we will also try to outline some practical guidelines for professionals dealing with these phenomena, based on the literature about LGBTQ IPV, on the affirmative therapy models or on examples of programs that try to work outside the traditional domestic violence protocols
Online reverse discourses? Claiming a space for trans voices
Get PDFIn recent years, online media have offered to trans people helpful resources to create new political, cultural and personal representations of their biographies. However, the role of these media in the construction of their social and personal identities has seldom been addressed. Drawing on the theoretical standpoint of positioning theory and diatextual discourse analysis, this paper discusses the results of a research project about weblogs created by Italian trans women. In particular, the aim of this study was to describe the ways online resources are used to express different definitions and interpretation of transgenderism, transsexuality and gender transitioning. We identified four main positioning strategies: “Transgender”, “Transsexual before being a woman”, “A woman who was born male” and “Just a normal woman”. We conclude with the political implications of the pluralization of narratives about gender non-conformity. Specifically, we will highlight how aspects of neoliberal discourses have been appropriated and rearticulated in the construction of gendered subjectivities
Maschilità: identificazioni, ruoli e soggetti
No full textOver the last decades, the study of the Masculine has entered in the field of social sciences as a central research topic. In particu- lar, Critical Studies on Men & Masculinities (CSMM) provide insightful tools to understand both the role of masculinity in sustaining asymmetric power dynamics in gender relations, and the heterogeneous ways in which subjects get to define themselves as men. Nevertheless, there are still numerous theoretical aporias open to debate. This paper aims both at summarizing the focal points of the debates on masculinities, and at assessing the contribution of a dialogue be- tween CSMM and psychoanalytic language in the study of men’s subjectivities. A promising point of contact to make this dialogue possible is Judith Butler’s post-structuralist rearticulation of Freud’s and Lacan’s works about the development of sexual identity
A struggle for definition: online narratives of Italian trans women
Get PDFIn recent years, literature in the field of trans studies suggested that there has been a widespread trend in academic debates about gender transitivity to produce monolithic conceptualizations of transness unable to account for the different gender experiences of trans individuals. This paper aims to provide a further contribution to debates in this area through an empirical investigation of trans narratives of identity and embodiment. Drawing on queer and transfeminist scholarship which framed social media as offering trans people a site for the re-negotiation of the meanings attached to gender transitivity, we conducted an abductive thematic qualitative analysis of 37 blog posts written by 10 Italian trans women concerning their experience of transness. Our findings suggest that in these posts, the bloggers realized a complex bricolage of scientific language, autobiographical storytelling and political statements which produced distinct narratives of gender transitivity. In particular, these accounts of transness diverge across different trajectories related to the negotiation of the medical discourse of gender diversity, to the articulation of the body as a site of empowerment and to how the bloggers defined which experiences of gender diversity should be included in the trans umbrella
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
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