Transgender migrations: prostitution,identity and notions of ‘home’ in contemporary France

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.     

Tropical African cultigens from Shongweni excavations,Natal

Plant material preserved in an arid cave at Shongweni, Natal, has been identified as the fruiting inflorescences of Eleusine coracana, Pennisetum typhoides and Sorghum bicolor. Pieces of outer wall of cucurbits have been identified as Citrullus lanatus and Lagenaria siceraria. All these are tropical cultivars exotic to the area. Radiocarbon dates from the relevant levels indicate that they date back to the third millennium BC. The implications of such an early date for the occurrence of these species as far south as Natal are discussed.