Border politicizations: the “place” of dissident sexual identities in city spaces

Abstract

This article is the result of an investigation that sought to investigate the forms of politicization of dissident sexual and gender identities in inner cities in the countries of Uruguay and Argentina. This text gathers some of the findings obtained and aims to analyze how disident identities are politicized by subjects in different parts of the city of Rivera (Uruguay). We start by asking ourselves how, in a context of legal guarantees for this population, as is the case in Uruguay, the subjects organize their identity experience, what spatial and symbolic boundaries we can find, and how they affect these in the trajectories of people in their daily lives and particularly in the enjoyment of their rights.

The methodology used, of a qualitative nature, articulates the conduct of in-depth interviews and participant observation, with an ethnographic perspective. The findings found show how the ways to politicize identities on the part of the subjects are not homogeneous but oscillating, bordering. It is also observed how are reproduce, in city locations, exclusive and unequal sociosexual imaginaries based in cissexual and heterosexual order that limits the exercise of human rights.