COST Action IS0803 2009, Workshop 3
Gender and Sexuality
Helsinki (Finland), 4-5 December 2009
Convenor
Prof. Tuija Pulkkinen
tuija.pulkkinen@helsinki.fi
+358 (0)9 191 23798, +358 (0)50 364 6647
Venue
University of Helsinki, Gender Studies
Helsinki
Title
Gender and Sexuality – Border Issues
1. Summary of the meeting:
WS3 meetings explore the theme of gender and sexuality, which is one of the central topics in the Action. In this first WS3 meeting the goal was to open the agenda through bringing together research lines on the intertwining of gender and sexuality at borders, and on conceptualizing gender and sexuality as intertwined, in the context of the EastBordNet action. A key element in the meeting – which is common with the other meetings of the Action – was to bring together regional specialists with conceptual specialists, as well as scholars working in the North-Eastern and South-Eastern borders of Europe.
Regarding the comparative aspect, the most intensely covered expertise on border areas in this meeting was that of the Norwegian–Russian, Finnish-Russian, and the Russian-Estonian-Latvian border area in the North, and the cultural borders and differences within former Yugoslavia, particularly Croatia and Serbia, in the South. There were a good number of conceptual specialists on gender and sexuality present in the meeting. The disciplines represented include gender studies, philosophy, sociology, geography, anthropology and ethnology.
More precisely, the participants were:
Dr Laura Assmuth, (Univ. Helsinki), social anthropologist specialized in the region of Russian-Estonian-Latvian-Ukrainian Borderlands.
Dr Olga Davidova, recently completed her PhD degree in Ethnology in (Univ. Joensuu), herself a migrant from Russia to Finland, also a frequent border crosser locally.
Dr Rozita Dimova, social anthropologist (Humboldt U. Berlin), specialized in Macedonian-Greek border areas. She is interested in the processes of melting border and symbols, and is also launching a project on the border regions of Macedonia related to prostitution.
Dr Antke Engel, Queer studies specialist from the Queer Institute in Berlin, with background in philosophy and sociology.
Dr Carola Häntsch, a philosopher (University of Greifswald) and a former DDR citizen, who is interested in the “inner border” of the East and the West in Germany, as well as in the differences in the history of gender along that border.
Ms Sanja Kajinic, a doctoral student in Gender Studies (CEU in Budapest) studying queer pride festivals in Croatia, activism and the visibility of sexuality.
Dr Duska Knezevic Hocevar (Socio-Medical Institute, Slovenia), a social anthropologist specialized in migrants, borders and nationalist fertility debates.
Prof. Tuija Pulkkinen, gender studies, philosophy, and political theory specialist (Univ. of Helsinki). The convener.
Dr Madeleine Reeves, social anthropologist (Univ. Manchester), specialized in Kyrgyzsian-Uzbekistan-Tadzikistan borders and interested in masculinity, border guards, labour migration and law.
Mr Paul Scheibelhofer, PhD student (CEU Budapest) in gender studies with background in sociology (Vienna), and specialization in masculinity studies and working on a project on Turkish immigrant masculinities in German speaking countries.
Dr Michaela Schäuble, social anthropologist (Univ. Halle), specialized in Croatia, Bosnia and Serbia. Within her wider interest in gender, religion and landscape, she particularly looks at masculinities and differences in mutually supportive construction of masculinity and nationality in these regions.
Dr Maj-Len Skilbrei, sociologist (Univ. Oslo) specializing in the research of traffic on women, particularly in the Nordic countries.
Dr Joni Virkkunen, geographer and regional studies specialist (University of Joensuu) specialized in post socialist borderlands in Estonia and Northern Karelia Finland.
The participants were asked to think “at the intersection of gender and sexuality at borders, both concrete and conceptual.” Papers were invited on “living the borders of sexualities and genders at European Eastern borders.” In the call “empirical work which challenges the present conceptual frameworks as well as conceptual work informed by the study of everyday practices at borders” was encouraged, and also “conceptual papers theorizing generally the borders at the intersection of gender and sexuality” were invited.
The topics most intensely discussed in the meeting were 1) Sexualization and eroticization of border zones; 2) Gender and sexuality as markers of national and ethnic difference; 3) Intersecting of gender, sexuality, ethnicity, race, and inequality in wealth in bordering practices; 4) Conceptualization of gender and sexuality, particularly pluralizing the notions of femininity and masculinity.
The meeting was highly successful, generating an intense and focused discussion which increased empirical knowledge and created conceptual depth into the intersection of gender, sexuality, ethnicity and nationality at the border regions of the Eastern peripheries of Europe. The discussion was very balanced in terms of empirical border research and conceptual themes. Conceptual discussion was highly productive in this workshop, and there was a clear sense of specialist of different areas learning from each other and contributing to each other’s work across disciplines).
On the conceptual level there was interest in developing the notion of ethnosexual as a characterization of border areas and frontiers, as well as national policies. Intersections of ethnicity and gender, and sexuality with inequality were widely discussed and the need for further re-conceptualizing in the area of the economic was discovered. There was conceptual discussion on the subjects of gendered, sexual ethnic and national cultural constructions. Such concepts as small openings and transformative narratives were found useful for conveying important dis-identification processes. There was also a productive discussion on the borders of the notion of gender itself; the concepts of men and women were problematized in terms of multiplying the images and practices of masculinity and femininity, and the need to avoid the easiness of heteronormative organizing of the study at borders was acknowledged.
In terms of this thinking of Border, the WS3 meeting came to the conclusion that instead of studying border-ness (or borderli-ness) as such, it makes more sense to try and discern processes of bordering practices, particularly those small everyday micro-practices which amount to differences and inequalities. Bordering practices are also in use in the national policies of territorialization, such as the gay-movement’s treatment in Russia, which labels it foreign, or in the prostitution policies in Scandinavian countries, where it appears that although the general trend has been towards decriminalizing the seller of sex the policies still seem to be targeted at “particular women” who are ethnicized and identified with international border crossing.
2. The structure of the meeting: productive trans-disciplinarity and enough time for discussion
In order to create a maximum of productive discussion the convener made in advance a decision to have a limited number of papers and to ask some of the selected participants to act as a discussant of particular papers instead of giving their proposed paper. This policy was already mentioned in the call. After the selections of the participants, the convener made the decision on their roles on the basis of crafting a focused program, based also on some heuristic knowledge of the stage of the projects proposed to be presented. The acceptance of the discussant role was also confirmed with those were not given an opportunity to present a paper. Each paper was given two discussants, and the same discussants commented on all the two or three papers in a session. This mode of organizing proved extremely successful, creating particularly well thought through discussions, in which all the other participants in the general discussion on the paper profited from the two first discussants, who carefully analyzed the issues of the presented paper from different points of view.
Originally 12 reimbursed participants were selected and in addition five participants came on their own expense. Before the meeting, three participants had to cancel their participation due to other engagements, and one new participant was available to be invited ad hoc, instead. There were three additional last minute cancellations due to the influenza season, which meant that two papers were discussed without their writer present. As a result, instead of the planned 17 participants, the actual meeting was attended by 13 participants, including the convener who chaired throughout the meeting. Eight papers were presented. This proved, in the end, to be an ideal number for a very lively discussion in which all the participants took part equally. Nevertheless, the risks produced by cancellations showed that there may be a need in the Action to create a contingency plan of replacements in the event of cancellations.
In many academic meetings the free structure of discussion easily produces unnecessary and unproductive hierarchies in terms of participation in the discussion. Changing the chair in different sessions does not usually alter the dynamics, instead, the active role of the chair in encouraging the participation of individuals, equally those who are less vocal, may help. In this meeting the structure of the event with pre-prepared commentaries helped in producing multi-voiced discussion. In the concluding discussion each participant was actively addressed, and the number of participants was ideal for producing rich concluding discussion with distinct voices and without forced unity.
At the planning stage, on the background of the abstracts (available); three themes crystallized with respect to gender and border: 1. prostitution, 2. nationalism/ethnicity in connection with gender, and 3. sexuality itself. Also, border crossing and issues around migration were particularly picked up in the abstracts, intertwined with these three themes. Two papers on prostitution related issues were among those which dropped out because of last minute cancelations and the focus on the first theme shifted slightly. In the end, the sessions were entitled 1) Sexuality at Border, 2) Nationalisms – Border crossing and 3) Sexuality – Migration.
The Action is planned to have strong cross-reference between the meetings, and in the organization of this workshop this was accentuated so that the first session was devoted to reports from the previous WG-meetings and on the discussion on them. This section integrated well with the rest of the meeting and was a good introduction to the themes discussed thus far in the action. The discussion in all of the session is described in the section below.
The optional program at the end of the meeting was organized in a form of a visit to Helsinki Pro-centre, and was attended by eight participants. In some Action meetings the optional program, located at the end of the second day of the meeting, has been experienced to be unconnected to the rest of the meeting, since there is no possibility of discussing it any more after the event. In this meeting there was no such feeling, since the visit was organized as an interactive presentation of the work by this NGO centre, extremely knowledgeable on the border related prostitution in Finland, and the discussion of the participants in the centre was very much connected to the discussion in the rest of the meeting.
One issue, which is potentially difficult for a local organizer of a COST action meeting, is the closed nature of the meetings that sometimes creates harmful notions of exclusions at the hosting department. Such a danger, and, on the positive note, a possibility for a wider mutual benefit of exchange in the environment of the meeting was addressed in this WS3 through a program connected to the meeting at the host department: one of the WS3 participants was invited to give a paper at the research seminar of the Gender Studies just before the meeting, and in this way the themes of the WS meeting became included in the discussion at the Gender Studies department.
3. Summary of the presentation and discussion in the sessions
The full texts of the presentations have been posted and can be reached at the password protected website http://www.eastbordnet.org/events/workgroups/WG32009/index.htm. They will be fully published on the open website over time, and wiki entries based on the meeting will appear in the project's wiki.
Presentations at Session 1: Reports from WG meetings
In the first session ten-minute presentations on Workgroup meetings were given. The convenor had given instructions of not trying to cover painstakingly everything said in a meeting, but rather to take one’s own view on it and highlight some aspects found particularly important in the presentations, discussion, or arrangements. The presenters were also encouraged to take up any possible connections to the present workshop theme: gender and sexuality, in those previous workgroup meetings.
Antke Engel presented the WG1 meeting in Nicosia. She took up the concept of “Borderliness” and connected it with dynamic entangling of multiple differentiations, critique of monolithic entities, as well as considering the dimension of power: productivity, restriction and conflict. “Borderliness” overstretches the term border into processes, transformations, and becomings, as well as spatial overlappings, blurrings and movements, and the multiple ways of belonging. Engel stressed that bounded entities (identities, territories, objects and concepts) are effects of various processes of exclusion, and she recounted the conceptual discussions in the WG1 on as how to think differences and differentiations. She also took up the theme of “small openings,” which are unregulated crossings and openings of possible futures. Another theme Engel stressed on the basis of WG1 discussions was conceptualizing border as an ongoing activity. She also told of discussions in which borderlands, rather than lines, are seen interesting, and, referring to the work of both Gloria Andalzua and Doreen Massey, how borderlands, and active borders, are seen as locations of co-existence of differences and heterogeneity.
Laura Assmuth’s presentation on the WG2 meeting in Rome concentrated first on the problematic form of that meeting, in which, in her opinion, too many papers were gathered together into a short time-slot, so that there was no possibility of discussion. The themes that she took up from this meeting were the discussions on the land versus sea borders, and the issues of migration. She paid attention to Italy, which having been an out-migration country, has turned into an in-migration country, many migrants being females in low paid labour-force. The issues of xenophobia, politics, and Romani question, among others, were touched upon in the meeting. Assmuth also told of papers on tourism and travelling, particularly of travel on liquid borders. Connecting her account to the topic of the present WS3 meeting, she paid attention to the lack of explicit discussion of gender in Rome. In her opinion, gender was implicitly there in the discussions, but was not in the focus in any of the papers. Instead, issues of state- versus transnational actors were discussed, as well as coercive structures.
Duska Knecevic Hocevar told of WG3 meeting in Ljubljana, which she had found very well organized and chaired. Ten 15-minute-presentations had allowed time for good discussions. The meeting presented “histories condensed” exposing 1) language differences and barriers, 2) minority issues, and 3) extensive discussion on regionalism. “Locality” or “localhoodness” was an important concept discussed. 15 wiki entries were agreed upon, and a plan for a glossary of border in different languages was put forward. On the basis of this meeting Knecevic Hocevar suggests thinking borders as “processes of borders,” and as a further topic to be developed in the Action she posed the problem of how to think of processes.
Madeleine Reeves presented the WG 4 for this meeting, taking up a rich array of themes discussed in that meeting, including legal aspects, papers and rights, through which “bordering techniques” came up as a central term. The issue of state connected with legality and illegality was discussed, as well as the dimension of uncertainty connected with borders: the affective, emotional relationships to differentiations, rumours, and incessant waiting at borders were also discussed. The question of what borders do to time was raised. There had been plenty of discussion on documentation, biometrics, the data gathered and techniques; as well as on social relationships, multiple agents that control movement – all of which amounts to analyzing, what she termed as, “bordering practices”.
Presentations at Session 2: Sexuality at Border
The Presentations at the second session generated rich and productive discussion on border zones. It first seemed that border zones generally are highly sexualized. Prostitution, for example, is connected to these zones and to border crossing. This session produced, however, a more detailed analysis on this hypothesis of borders as sexualized, since the comparison between different border zones showed very different evidence as to how sexualized they are. The ensuing discussion pointed towards a need for further exploration on the interconnection of, for example, economic inequalities connected with borders as a precondition of such sexualizing processes. Also, the idea of border-zones as a sexually ambiguous area in a positive sense was briefly visited.
The first paper in the session was presented by Maj-Len Skilbrei, who specializes in the study of Nordic prostitution policies and markets. Studying the recent active, prostitution regulation politics in the Nordic countries, she argued that while politics has managed to decrease the prostitution market as harmful to gender relations, it has simultaneously produced “othering mechanisms” to single out “particular women” who are the problem.
In the Nordic countries the regulation during the last decades of the legislation has been characterized by the decriminalization of the person selling sex. May-Len Skilbrei pointed out that despite the intricate analysis of factors contributing to prostitution, in terms of politics, the problem still seems to be the seller, and the processes of othering are at place. Particularly women are seen to be the problem, exactly as it used to be in the 19th century.
In the last decade the Nordic prostitution market has changed dramatically. Growing global inequality and changes in the border policies between Eastern Europe and former Soviet areas/Eastern Europe have internationalized the markets, and the markets have become increasingly international. A significant increase in the numbers of women from South-East Asia and Africa is also present. The discussants were Rozita Dimova and Duska Knezevic Hocevar. In the discussion it was pointed out that when the 19th century discussion on prostitution was mostly carried out in terms of gender, the problem being “women” and women’s position, the present discourse has introduced other concepts, such as “trafficking” and the number of agents in the analyses has increased: there are “workers” and “sellers” and “buyers”. Gender, ethnicity and race intersect in this area.
Dimova called for more comparative work on prostitution. Knezevic Hocevar drew attention to the fact that in this area there are pressures to harmonize the legislature; however, the same law may allow highly varying practices. In the discussion Skilbrei stressed that studies show that through various legal and policing actions, the sellers “foreignness” is made relevant and the policies towards prostitution are increasingly ethnicized.
It was also pointed out in the discussion that prostitution is unnecessarily organized around blame, in these policies, as if it was primarily a moral issue. Special attention to terminology in this area is needed because of that. The blame on particular women is a common popular discourse; and the topic also invites gender focus: very little attention is directed to male prostitution.
The discussion brought up the analysis according to which the phenomenon involves the dimension of 1) xenophobia, close to racism and the terminology of ethnicity 2) the dimension of different actors: buyers, sellers, third party organizers; 3) the dimension of forced conduct wherein feminist agenda is relevant. There was also discussion on social class connected to strongly to prostitution in the past. The concept of class was found deficit in catching the intersection of the hierarchies of wealth, gender, ethnicity and nationality in the present internationalized prostitution.
The second paper in the session was presented by Olga Davidova. The paper, written together with Pirjö Pöllänen, presents a project of ethnographic study at a border crossing station Niirala-Värtsilä in Northern Karelia at the Finnish-Russian border. The paper seeks to study the bodily experiences of female border crosses, particularly those caring for others on the border area. The study sees the border as a highly masculine space including male border guards’ performance of power; also, the majority of those who cross the border are men. The border-zone in this area is highly sexualized, and in her analysis Davidova refers to Joane Nagel’s study, which introduced the concept of “ethnosexual frontier” as “erotic locations and exotic destinations policed but constantly penetrated by individuals forging sexual links with ethnic others. … Ethnosexual frontiers are sites where ethnicity is sexualized, and sexuality is racialized, ethnicized and nationalized.”
Davidova describes the border crossing in Värtsilä as a place which creates the feeling of continuous ethnosexual adventure, which can be seen, for example, in the amount of souvenirs with pornographic elements. The over-sexualization of the border space: sex magazines and the amount of condoms next to the cash desks make the experience for any female, particularly Russian female border crosser, uncomfortable. A sign for those crossing from Finland to Russia, saying “Do not fuck your life away!” is a strange message for a woman like Davidova, a frequent crosser because of relatives on the Russian side. Who is to be protected from whom?
The discussant Duska Knezevic Hocevar challenged the notion of care being particularly feminine and called for the contextualization of the sexual imagery. She also pointed out the need for much more careful thinking and theorizing of the notion of bodily experience, of men and masculinity, and of women and femininity. The notion of borders as a particularly masculine space was also challenged; for example, in many places smuggling, which is common at borders, is carried out by women who hide the goods in their clothes.
The discussion also led to the interest in the notion “ethnosexuality”, which became quite generally recognized as one of the innovative concepts in this meeting, and the potential for developing over its original use in the literature was also recognized. In the discussion it was also pointed out that the Finnish-Russian border is one of the widest income gaps in Europe.
Laura Assmuth’s paper, based on ethnography on a post-socialist border of Estonia and Russia was a very interesting counter-point to Davidova’s paper. In this remote rural border region, where Assmuth has done her fieldwork, women, particularly older women, are the most frequent border-crossers, and there are no signs of ethnosexual adventure.
This is a case of a new border; a very multiethnic and multilingual area, in which the Baltics were “The Soviet West” for long. Assmuth interest lies in gender and in generations. The region is that of older women, and the men are not active, they are alcoholics or have left the region. The border is not much commercialized; plastic bags, and mushrooms and berries are carried over. At the borders there are no prostitutes, the borders are rather a-sexual. Many of the border-guards are also women.
The conversation that ensued paid attention to the organization of social life along the lines of heterosexual categories of masculinity and femininity, and to the difficulties in detaching from hetero-normative categories. The issue of border and “femininity” and “masculinity” was discussed intensively; for example, whether the performance of the female border guard is “masculine.” The issue appeared a complex one, in need of further study of these concepts. The discussion on ethnosexuality and the limitations of the notion and applying it universally to borders continued. The significance of the income gaps for the sexualization of a border came up as an issue. At the Russian-Estonian borders the differences are relatively small in comparison to the Russian-Finnish border. The discussion opened the large question of understanding the role of wealth inequalities in sexuality.
Presentations Session 3: Nationalism
In session 3 the topic was nationalism in combination with gender and sexuality. There was a very lively discussion on the different gendered images of nationalist/patriotic/masculinity present, and on the gay and lesbian sexualities becoming markers of territorialization and a highly politicized ethnosexual bordering practice.
The first presentation, by Michaela Schäuble, was on nationalism, masculinities and militarization in Croatia vis a vis Serbia. She drew attention to two very different images of national patriotic masculinity. In Croatia there has been an image of a “romantic” Rambo-style warrior, described with epithets such as “wartime dandy” and “cool” for which fashion and style were important. In comparison, in Croatia the Serbian soldiers have been commonly associated with uncultured machismo and backwardness, un-groomed hairs and beards. Ridicule on deficient masculinity is a widespread technique of denigrating respective opponent on both sides. Sexual imagery is inherent in these ethno-national ascriptions. For example, in Serbian war songs Croatia was ridiculed as a loose woman who lends herself to Europe, but is badly rejected. Schäuble also suggested that ex-generals Ante Gotovina and Mirco Norac can be seen as the personifications of the clean Croatian gentleman-hero: fighter and the playboy, Rambo with the taste for beautiful women. Another gendered figure of nationalism in the Croatian public discourse is the negative image of non-Croatian female figure ICTY chief prosecutor Carla del Ponte, who is frequently portrayed as “the whore in the Hague”. Language and imagery of gendered and sexualized national dignity and honour was richly analyzed in this paper.
The first commentator, Carola Häntsch, paid attention to the language in which the images and cultural constructions processes are presented in the study of them, asking what the subject in these construction processes is. She particularly asked how active these construction processes are conceived to be. What are the mechanisms of producing them? Häntsch compared the constructions of masculinities of national heroism in this respect to phenomena such as the “ostalgie” in Germany. Are these processes active, or reactive, and in which sense?
The second commentator, Madeleine Reeves, reflected on masculinities in war, on virile patriotic masculinity, and other possible modes of patriotic masculinity, such as patriotism of suffering, connected with religious images, for example. She also called for more research on 1) micro-level social mechanisms through which the gendered and sexualized images of border and nation are deployed, and for 2) the study of possibilities of not repeating the dominant images, contestations, resistances and transformative narratives.
In the discussion it was pointed out that the gendered and sexualized imagery of war heroes also includes the persistent image of women and children as the defended ones and that it largely ignores the rape in war. The image of wartime dandy and its highly hetero-sexualized context was discussed a lot, and images of heroic femininity were called for. It was pointed out that the same people who would worship the warriors would attack the gay Prides, which entaile demonstrations of visual representation of transformation and resistance. Images and visual aspects of gender and sexuality in connection with nation were discussed.
The second paper by Joni Virkkunen started from the fact that the gay rights has become highly politicized issue in Russia, and that the rhetoric of extremism is widely spread on this issue. In his analysis of the various processes of othering, territorialisation and diversification as well as features of post-socialist political culture are connected with it.
Virkkunen analyzed the phenomena in terms of bordering practices, and particularly in terms of ethnosexual bordering. There is abundant discourse accusing activism for being “foreign”. Militant anti-gay movement has been assisted by the police, and gay activists have been arrested. This territorializing bordering, in which the border of the private and the public is also at stake, and in which violence and media publicity are strategies of power, is part of a political culture, and should be analyzed as such, he argued.
In the discussion there was a positive response to connecting gay rights and political culture as issues. Gay movements, it was pointed out, have democratic implications, in terms of political representation, and involve radicalness. There was discussion comparing the public presence of gay movement in Poland, in the Baltics, in Macedonia, Slovenia, and Croatia. It was pointed out that quite widely the accusations of foreign influence through the NGO’s is connected with the discussion on minority sexualities, and that in some cases the nationalistic arguments on fertility are connected to it, as well. On the other hand, it was pointed out that there is also a commercialized media culture represented by pop-artists which shows alternatives, and that there is, among the middle-class in the new Russia, also a phenomenon of “capitalist gayness”. Finally, it was noted that gay rights have received a symbolic status of modernization in the post-soviet transitory societies, and that market liberalism should in this respect be clearly distinguished from political liberalism, although it looks like minority rights and sexual rights embody the promise of success and liberal market.
Presentations Session 4: Sexuality - Migration
In the fourth session, first, the papers of two absent participants, Zuzana Burikova and Katja Kahlina were discussed. Although the discussants did a very good job, it was evident that the presence of the writer makes the discussion livelier. The third paper in this session was the case that was discussed more intensively.
Burikova’s paper reported on an ethnographic study of the experiences of Slovak au-pairs working in London as rites of passage to adulthood, and Kahlina’s paper on ethnosexual belonging explored a case of a transperson in Croatia. In their discussion on Burikova’s paper Antke Engel and Sanja Kajanic wondered whether the interpretation of sexual experimentation of the young au-pairs as a rite of passage, which is then followed by the return to social order, looses the sight of the possibility of transformative narratives within this intimate sphere of gendered migration. There was also reflection on the interrelation of the sexual and the economic related to consumer subject in Burikova’s papers. In the discussion some apprehension was raised about the notion of “rite of passage” as a metaphor in this paper, with respect to its use in classical anthropological literature.
Sanja Kajanic discussion on Katja Kahlina’s paper paid particular attention to the notions of small openings and transformative narratives that Kahlina brought up as concepts in studying intimate spheres resisting the dominant project of belonging. The commentators also discussed the notion of gay and lesbian nationalism that came up in the paper. Kahlina’s paper is very important in studying dis-identification processes in the face of assimilationist projects, tactics of disintegration, and non-identification, it was pointed out.
The concept of “ethnosexuality” was present in this paper as well. Antke Engel, in her commentary, also brought to discussion the doubt whether the notion of “ethnosexuality” might reify both “the ethnic” and “the border”.
The third paper, presented by Paul Scheibelhofer, was on a study of Turkish migrant men in Germany and Austria. Scheibelhofer’s emphasis is on intersectionality in studying the constructions of Turkish migrant masculinity in the German speaking context. Popular critique of multiculturalism in Europe often uses the images of traditional and patriarchal Muslim men, lead by the rigid norms of rural Turkish tradition and patriarchal Muslim rules. Starting form masculinity studies informed with feminist studies on intersectionality, Scheibelhofer suggests various ways of re-conceptualizing the dominant representations of Turkish immigrant masculinity via an intersectional lens.
Very often “The Turkish Muslim man” is described out of context. “Turkish rural culture” is imagined to be repeated over generations in migrant men, and in studies it often takes over the descriptions of actual practices, leaving other factors unnamed, except the “tradition” that shapes the lives of Turkish migrant men. Shared experience of discrimination, for example, can actually be more effective in bringing young men together than “tradition”. In connection of the intersectional analysis of religiosity in Muslim migrant men’s life, Scheibelhofer also pays attention to the fact that Muslim organizations have become more visible and have gained importance because state bodies have come to view them as representatives of “the community”. He calls for a study, which would explore to what extent certain Muslim discourses create hegemonic forms of masculinity, and for intersectional and contextual analyses which are able to show differences within migrant communities, and power structures – instead of stereotypical imageries.
In the discussion the importance of historicizing and contextualizing and taking local circumstances seriously was further emphasized as being very important for the study instead of re-circulating the simplified images. There was an interesting discussion on the fact that the model of masculinity in the “original Turkish villages” which are so frequently referred to as the source of immigrant masculinity, is not at all simple and uniform, but that there is constant cultural change going on. Instead of simplifications, a careful contextualizing study is needed here as well. There was also a rich discussion on the various current conceptualizations of multiculturalism and integration in German speaking countries, and attention was paid to the selective nature of political agency in these discussions.
Conclusions
In the concluding discussion each participant had a chance to first name what they had gathered of the meeting and what was at the top of their mind at the end in terms of conclusions. They were also invited to mention the main concepts that had come up, in their view.
Several participants mentioned ethnosexual as a concept that can be re-circulated and put in use, expanded and analyzed, and used as an analytical tool, also taking into consideration the dangers of reification in it.
Bordering as a verb, and accentuating the doing of borders, instead of looking at borders in terms of trying to find their border-ness, was generally mentioned as a favoured approach into studying gender, sexuality and money, as well as other aspects of border studied in the network. Bordering practices was a favoured term, and identifying and deconstructing various bordering practices was seen as a good goal. Particularly historical perspective into processes, contextuality, and various social mechanisms by which these constructions are produced, deserve closer attention, including the gendering, heteronormativizing and eroticizing mechanisms. The general issue of structure/agency in gender, sexuality, ethnic and national constructions was mentioned as important and in need of further study. Most participants mentioned the multiple discussions on masculinities and men and femininities and women in this meeting as very important. The economic dimension of gender and sexuality at border was mentioned by most as important for analysis. The notion of “class” was concluded to be not sufficient enough in studying border areas, in which different social structures meet. Borders within ourselves, as well as the visibility and invisibility of borders, were mentioned as meaningful topics, as was racism in connection with immigration and prostitution as well. Many took up small openings and transformative narratives, which serve as possibilities of dis-identification and resistance and contestation of the normative gender, sexuality, ethnicity and nationality constructions. A wish was expressed that concrete people at the borders could be empowered through these studies.
It was agreed that wiki entries will be written on:
“Ethnosexuality” by Joni Virkkunen and Olga Davidova jointly.
“Generation” by Laura Assmuth
“Border Hacking” by Antke Engel
“Sex-work” by Antke Engel
“Bordering” by Madeleine Reeves
“Intersectionality” by Paul Scheibelhofer
The Optional Program: Pro-Centre
The optional program in the afternoon of the second day was a visit to the Pro-Centre (Pro-tukikeskus) in Helsinki, and it was attended by eight participants. Along with the presentation of the Centre’s activities by an employee, the participants engaged in a rich interactive discussion, in which many comparative aspects came up. The staff of the Centre gave a comprehensive introduction to their NGO work and to the extremely border implicated prostitution scene in Finland, providing a perspective to issues of immigration, sex, income gaps, and everyday realities of sex-related earning, and its effect on gendered life. Among other things, also interesting differences in organizing a NGO were discussed. In Finland, although the Pro-Centre is funded almost entirely with money which comes through government organized channels (earnings from lottery), it is a NGO, which makes its decisions independent of government policy and control. This is an important precondition for the trust of the customers of the Centre, the sex workers, most of them immigrant women from neighbouring Russia and Estonia, who frequent the premises and use the services of the Centre in great numbers. Very valuable work is done by this organization.
Further topics to explore
A long term further topic to explore in the area of the WS3 is the role of money and inequality in wealth in the construction of sexuality itself. Why do inequalities and differences in the border areas transform into gendered sexuality? Gayle Rubin suggested a long time ago that the gendered division of labour is essential in producing heterosexual desire. Although not in the mode of structuralist “theories” of gender and sexuality and border, but rather through looking at historical and concrete contingencies and in practices of bordering, there seems to be potential within this Action to systematically explore the dynamics of gender and sexuality in the differentiations that constitute borders. Can sexuality more widely, like prostitution has been, be understood as a border issue rather than a primarily gender issue? How constitutive and productive of sexuality are the differences in conditions, intertwined with ethnicization and exotication? Through a careful analysis of comparative and conceptual work there is a possibility of gaining more information and a better understanding of intertwined phenomena of gender, sexuality and border.
Conceptual innovation, particularly in the field of the analysis of economic inequality, intersecting with gender and sexuality at the border regions, is encouraged on the basis of the discussion in this workshop. It became obvious, that the vocabulary of class has its limitations when areas in which different social structures meet, are studied.
A particular further question to explore is how universally applicable the concepts of ethnosexual space, place and region are in connection to border areas. It became evident in the discussion of the workshop that the notion of ethnosexual bordering is worth developing further.