Transgender migrations: prostitution, identity and notions of 'home' in contemporary France. (3rd April 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Brett, Oliver
• Is Part Of: Modern & contemporary France. Volume 27:Number 2(2019)
• Page Start: 163
• Page End: 184
• Publication Date: 2019-04-03
• Subjects: France -- History -- 18th century -- Periodicals; France -- History -- 1789- -- Periodicals; France -- History -- 20th century -- Periodicals; 944
• DOI: 10.1080/09639489.2019.1595550
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0963-9489

Abstract

ABSTRACT: Migrant street prostitution in France has increased since the 1990s, largely as a result of the ease of movement facilitated by political shifts in Eastern Europe opening up national borders and the arrival of greater numbers of prostitutes from Africa and China. These often precarious migrations have generally been made by cisgender females; although, a comparatively smaller (but progressively significant) number are transgender. The representation of this latter group is explored in this article through four documentary/docufiction films that respectively recount what can be described as the sequential stages of geographical mobility (i.e. pre-migration, migration, and post-migration). Motivated by the concern that more particular voices within the 'queer community' are insufficiently represented, the focus here will be on how this group of transgender migrant prostitutes articulate a sense of 'home'. Analysis is framed through Sara Ahmed's notion of 'home' as 'skin', a porous space that blends the static and the mobile, the 'here' and 'there'. The selected texts disarticulate the epistemology of prostitution in gendered terms and dislocate the transgender body from material associations that link successful migration with the movement from one place and body to another.