Travestismos comparados: una aplicación etnográfica de la perspectiva de Judith Butler

Abstract

The authors of this article participate together in a research project that aims to analize articulations of subjectivity and agency that emerge from the intertwining of ethnic, class, gender and age cleavages. We understand that none of these cleavages operates on its own but within a framework in which the others are also part. Therefore, every social footing that explicitly draws on one of these cleavages necessarily implies the operation of those that are not visible. Our conceptual tools are two ideas that belong to Judith Butler. The first one is related to a debate in the field of feminist theory about the ethnocentric assumptions behind the assertion that gender difference is prior to other differences and constitutes an autonomous sphere of relations. The second one is the use of transvestism as a metaphore to analise those cases in which articulations of subjectivity fail in the materialization of the norm that is necessary to complete the identification process. With these theoretical tools we intend to analize transvestisms of gender, class, age and ethnicity in Río Negro and Chubut.