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The concept of "gender" has recently become one of the symbols of
what many consider "a clash of civilizations" between the West and
Muslim countries. Recent events highlight how gender issues are
emblematic of the basic traits of a country's culture, and thus
constitute some of the elements allowing for the construction of
dividing lines between cultures, arbitrarily distinguishing between
the "evolved" and "backward" ones, therefore with the aim to
establish demarcation lines between "Us" and the "Others". The
existential condition of migration leads to formation of multiple
and diasporic identities, deterritorialized and reassembled at the
individual level. In this scenario the integration of migrants is
the result of a two-way process, in which rely significantlythe
social representations that migrants are being built on the
population and of the host society (before and after the arrival)
and intangible resources (cognitive and relational) experienced by
migrants. Gender studies usually employing a constructionist
perspective have seldom dealt with the issue of migration by
analysing the experiences of the migrants themselves. The few
studies have highlighted how migrants' gender and sexuality
underline the persistence of a model of domination and alteration
typical ofthe colonial era, emphasizing the social identity
allocation mechanisms used by Western societies that follow
essentialist visions of migrants' ethnic and sexual identity, that
is, of a social status considered as inferior and undesirable.
There are several theoretical and methodological challenges calling
for a perspective that takes into account the interconnection
between gender, sexuality and migration. Studies on sexuality have
now taken two roads, often strongly polarized and non-communicating
between them: on the one hand, also because of the spread of
sexually transmitted diseases, appeared a new generation of surveys
on sexual behaviour of Western (and others) populations and on the
changes in sexual behaviour along the main socio-economic and
cultural fractures. On the other, a research trend on sexuality
(New Sexuality Studies) has developed with mixed purposes, both
analytical and critical-emancipatory ones. This branch, which
focuses almost exclusively on the study of minority sexual
subcultures, portrayed sexuality mostly through the lens of power
and regarded with suspicion any attempt to develop a systematic and
methodologically documented analysis of sexuality.The book will
have repercussions on the progress of knowledge from a macro
dimension represented by the growth and the transformation of
migration flows across the Mediterranean to Europe to meso
dimension of social representations of gender and sexuality that
the migrant builds himself and the population of the host society;
finally, the micro dimension through the analysis of case studies.
From these problems, the book aims to initiate a transdisciplinary
reflection on such issues and sexuality, in part by reducing the
clear vacuum in scientific research taking shape as an experimental
laboratory of new research perspectives because we recognize,
critically, how the methods of the social sciences do not simply
reproduce the phenomena under study, but also contribute - a
greater or lesser degree - to their construction. And at the same
time making an issue of sex, sexuality and the multiple
identifications of gender of and in migration, involving migratory
experiences both on the side of leaving a country and on that of
arriving to another.
The concept of "gender" has recently become one of the symbols of
what many consider "a clash of civilizations" between the West and
Muslim countries. Recent events highlight how gender issues are
emblematic of the basic traits of a country's culture, and thus
constitute some of the elements allowing for the construction of
dividing lines between cultures, arbitrarily distinguishing between
the "evolved" and "backward" ones, therefore with the aim to
establish demarcation lines between "Us" and the "Others". The
existential condition of migration leads to formation of multiple
and diasporic identities, deterritorialized and reassembled at the
individual level. In this scenario the integration of migrants is
the result of a two-way process, in which rely significantlythe
social representations that migrants are being built on the
population and of the host society (before and after the arrival)
and intangible resources (cognitive and relational) experienced by
migrants. Gender studies usually employing a constructionist
perspective have seldom dealt with the issue of migration by
analysing the experiences of the migrants themselves. The few
studies have highlighted how migrants' gender and sexuality
underline the persistence of a model of domination and alteration
typical ofthe colonial era, emphasizing the social identity
allocation mechanisms used by Western societies that follow
essentialist visions of migrants' ethnic and sexual identity, that
is, of a social status considered as inferior and undesirable.
There are several theoretical and methodological challenges calling
for a perspective that takes into account the interconnection
between gender, sexuality and migration. Studies on sexuality have
now taken two roads, often strongly polarized and non-communicating
between them: on the one hand, also because of the spread of
sexually transmitted diseases, appeared a new generation of surveys
on sexual behaviour of Western (and others) populations and on the
changes in sexual behaviour along the main socio-economic and
cultural fractures. On the other, a research trend on sexuality
(New Sexuality Studies) has developed with mixed purposes, both
analytical and critical-emancipatory ones. This branch, which
focuses almost exclusively on the study of minority sexual
subcultures, portrayed sexuality mostly through the lens of power
and regarded with suspicion any attempt to develop a systematic and
methodologically documented analysis of sexuality.The book will
have repercussions on the progress of knowledge from a macro
dimension represented by the growth and the transformation of
migration flows across the Mediterranean to Europe to meso
dimension of social representations of gender and sexuality that
the migrant builds himself and the population of the host society;
finally, the micro dimension through the analysis of case studies.
From these problems, the book aims to initiate a transdisciplinary
reflection on such issues and sexuality, in part by reducing the
clear vacuum in scientific research taking shape as an experimental
laboratory of new research perspectives because we recognize,
critically, how the methods of the social sciences do not simply
reproduce the phenomena under study, but also contribute - a
greater or lesser degree - to their construction. And at the same
time making an issue of sex, sexuality and the multiple
identifications of gender of and in migration, involving migratory
experiences both on the side of leaving a country and on that of
arriving to another.
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