Full Description
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.
Contents
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
