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Global Communities and Hybrid Cultures: Early Gay and Lesbian Electoral Activism in Brazil and Mexico

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 September 2022

Rafael de la Dehesa
Rafael de la Dehesa*
Affiliation:
College of Staten Island, City University of New York
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Abstract

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Scholars have recast debates on globalization by emphasizing both national actors’ selective appropriation of transnational practices and their hybrid reinvention in national settings. Drawing on Nestor García Canclini’s concepts of “global communities “ and “hybrid cultures, “ I explore these debates by comparing gay and lesbian activists’ first experiments in electoral activism in Mexico and Brazil, both occurring in 1982. The different electoral strategies that prevailed in each country drew on the transnational arena in different ways. To explain these differences, I consider the relative strength of competing sectors within heterogeneous social movement fields and their variable participation in competing global communities. The relative influence of these sectors and thus the relative salience of specific transnational practices, in turn, reflected each movement’s embeddedness in broader opposition movements to authoritarian regimes. Finally, I argue that these practices should be read contextually, with attention given to their transformation and limitations in national settings.

Resumo

Resumo

Varios académicos han abordado los debates acerca de la globalización enfatizando tanto la apropriación selectiva de prácticas transnacionales por actores nacionales como la reinvención de éstas prácticas en marcos nacionales. En base a los conceptos de “comunidades globales” y “culturas híbridas” acuñados por Nestor García Canclini, exploro estos debates comparando los primeros experimentos de activismo electoral realizados por homosexuales y lesbianas en México y Brasil, ocurridos en el año 1982. Las diferentes estrategias electorales que fueron utilizadas en cada país devinieron de la arena transnacional de distintos modos. Para explicar estas diferencias, considero la fuerza relativa de diversos sectores compitiendo dentro de “campos” de activismo heterogéneos y su participación en comunidades globales rivales. La relativa influencia de estos sectores y por tanto la relativa importancia de practicas transnacionales específicas, a su vez, reflejaron la participación de cada movimiento en movimientos mas amplios movilizando contra regímenes autoritarios. Finalmente, argumento que estas prácticas deben ser comprendidas en su contexto, prestando atención a sus transformaciones y limitaciones en los respectivos marcos nacionales.

Type
Research Article
Information
Latin American Research Review , Volume 42 , Issue 1 , February 2007 , pp. 29 - 51
Copyright
Copyright © 2007 by the University of Texas Press

Footnotes

1.

I would like to thank Jorge Domínguez, Grace Mitchell, Jean Halley, and Salvador Vidal-Ortiz for their very helpful suggestions on earlier incarnations of this work.

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