Ebook297 pages7 hours
Mema's House, Mexico City: On Transvestites, Queens, and Machos
Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
4.5/5
()
About this ebook
Mema's house is in the poor barrio Nezahualcoyotl, a crowded urban space on the outskirts of Mexico City where people survive with the help of family, neighbors, and friends. This house is a sanctuary for a group of young, homosexual men who meet to do what they can't do openly at home. They chat, flirt, listen to music, and smoke marijuana. Among the group are sex workers and transvestites with high heels, short skirts, heavy make-up, and voluminous hairstyles; and their partners, young, bisexual men, wearing T-shirts and worn jeans, short hair, and maybe a mustache.
Mema, an AIDS educator and the leader of this gang of homosexual men, invited Annick Prieur, a European sociologist, to meet the community and to conduct her fieldwork at his house. Prieur lived there for six months between 1988 and 1991, and she has kept in touch for more than eight years. As Prieur follows the transvestites in their daily activities—at their work as prostitutes or as hairdressers, at night having fun in the streets and in discos—on visits with their families and even in prisons, a fascinating story unfolds of love, violence, and deceit.
She analyzes the complicated relations between the effeminate homosexuals, most of them transvestites, and their partners, the masculine-looking bisexual men, ultimately asking why these particular gender constructions exist in the Mexican working classes and how they can be so widespread in a male-dominated society—the very society from which the term machismo stems. Expertly weaving empirical research with theory, Prieur presents new analytical angles on several concepts: family, class, domination, the role of the body, and the production of differences among men.
A riveting account of heroes and moral dilemmas, community gossip and intrigue, Mema's House, Mexico's City offers a rich story of a hitherto unfamiliar culture and lifestyle.
Mema, an AIDS educator and the leader of this gang of homosexual men, invited Annick Prieur, a European sociologist, to meet the community and to conduct her fieldwork at his house. Prieur lived there for six months between 1988 and 1991, and she has kept in touch for more than eight years. As Prieur follows the transvestites in their daily activities—at their work as prostitutes or as hairdressers, at night having fun in the streets and in discos—on visits with their families and even in prisons, a fascinating story unfolds of love, violence, and deceit.
She analyzes the complicated relations between the effeminate homosexuals, most of them transvestites, and their partners, the masculine-looking bisexual men, ultimately asking why these particular gender constructions exist in the Mexican working classes and how they can be so widespread in a male-dominated society—the very society from which the term machismo stems. Expertly weaving empirical research with theory, Prieur presents new analytical angles on several concepts: family, class, domination, the role of the body, and the production of differences among men.
A riveting account of heroes and moral dilemmas, community gossip and intrigue, Mema's House, Mexico's City offers a rich story of a hitherto unfamiliar culture and lifestyle.
Related to Mema's House, Mexico City
Related ebooks
To Lead As Equals: Rural Protest and Political Consciousness in Chinandega, Nicaragua, 1912-1979 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Constellations of Care: Anarcha-Feminism in Practice Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A Study Guide for Claribel Alegria's "Accounting" Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCreating Charismatic Bonds in Argentina: Letters to Juan and Eva Perón Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA War on Global Poverty: The Lost Promise of Redistribution and the Rise of Microcredit Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsVolunteering for a Cause: Gender, Faith, and Charity in Mexico from the Reform to the Revolution Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWe Still Have Words Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsUnlawful Violence: Mexican Law and Cultural Production Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTroubling Gender: Youth and Cumbia in Argentina's Music Scene Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5The Mexican Transition: Politics, Culture and Democracy in the Twenty-first Century Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRoar Like a Woman: How Feminists Think Women Suck and Men Rock Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Knowledge Flows in a Global Age: A Transnational Approach Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Challenge of Political Islam: Non-Muslims and the Egyptian State Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Last Patriarch Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Deepening Local Democracy in Latin America: Participation, Decentralization, and the Left Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMigrant Feelings, Migrant Knowledge: Building a Community Archive Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsInside the Critics’ Circle: Book Reviewing in Uncertain Times Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTrue Truth Serum Volume #1 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsResisting Borders and Technologies of Violence Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAgitated: Grupos Autónomos and Armed Anticapitalism in Spain, 1974–1984 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRetribution Book 1 - Seeds of Revenge: Retribution, #1 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBlack & White & Noir: America's Pulp Modernism Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMy Half Orange: A Story of Love and Language in Seville Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Love Ashram: And Other Stories Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNative to the Republic: Empire, Social Citizenship, and Everyday Life in Marseille since 1945 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsConcerto in Dead Flat Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Triangle: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Last Day of January Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGet Out of My Room!: A History of Teen Bedrooms in America Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLetters from America, 1946–1951 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Anthropology For You
The Hundred Years' War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917–2017 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Way of the Shaman Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5You Just Don't Understand: Women and Men in Conversation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Body Language Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Folk Medicine in Southern Appalachia Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHomo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Seven Basic Plots: Why We Tell Stories Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Status Game: On Human Life and How to Play It Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty Are Used Against Women Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Rethinking Narcissism: The Bad---and Surprising Good---About Feeling Special Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The WEIRDest People in the World: How the West Became Psychologically Peculiar and Particularly Prosperous Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Psychology of Totalitarianism Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Trickster Makes This World: Mischief, Myth, and Art Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A History of the American People Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dark Matter of the Mind: The Culturally Articulated Unconscious Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Bruce Lee Wisdom for the Way Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Regarding the Pain of Others Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How to Survive in Ancient Egypt Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bright-sided: How Positive Thinking is Undermined America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Trouble With Testosterone: And Other Essays On The Biology Of The Human Predi Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bullshit Jobs: A Theory Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5America Before: The Key to Earth's Lost Civilization Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Immortality Key: The Secret History of the Religion with No Name Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Stories of Rootworkers & Hoodoo in the Mid-South Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Slouching Towards Bethlehem: Essays Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Chalice and the Blade: Our History, Our Future---Updated With a New Epilogue Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Age of Insecurity: Coming Together as Things Fall Apart Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Reviews for Mema's House, Mexico City
Rating: 4.333333333333333 out of 5 stars
4.5/5
3 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
Mema's House, Mexico City - Annick Prieur
Enjoying the preview?
Page 1 of 1