We Carry this Map of Ourselves Around M
“We
Carry
this
Map
of
Ourselves
Around”:
Mapping
the
Queer
Body
“I
have
become
used
to
wearing,
it
seems,
the
constant
pose
of
the
foreigner.”
(Zambreno,
Heroines:
17)
In
the
introduction
to
his
book
New
World
Borders,
Guillermo
Gomez
Peña
attempts
at
encompassing
his
multi-‐faceted
identity
by
recurring
to
geographic
locations
and
to
travelling-‐related
vocabulary:
“I
am
a
nomadic
Mexican
artist/writer
in
the
process
of
chicanization,
which
means
I
am
slowly
heading
North.
My
journey
not
only
goes
from
South
to
North,
but
from
Spanish
to
Spanglish,
and
then
to
English
(…)
and
from
a
static
sense
of
identity
to
a
repertoire
of
multiple
identities.”
(Peña,
1996:
i).
The
author
also
focuses
on
the
relevance
of
the
production
of
culture
within
a
certain
milieu,
grounded
on
politics
of
location,
as
he
enquires
“what
does
it
mean
to
be
alive
and
to
make
art
in
an
apocalyptic
era
framed/reframed
by
changing
borders,
feracious
racial
violence,
irrational
fears
of
otherness
and
hibridity,
spiritual
emptiness,
AIDS
and
other
massively
destructive
diseases,
ecological
devastation,
and,
of
course,
lots
of
virtual
space?”
(Peña,
1996:
i).
In
such
statement,
the
responsibility
of
the
artist
and
the
responsibility
of
the
citizen
become
one,
as
the
notion
of
a
politically
engaged
art
calls
for
the
need
for
a
dilution
of
the
spaces
for
the
production
and
consumerism
of
art,
for
the
approximation
of
private
and
public
spheres.
By
calling
attention
to
these
changing
borders
and
the
fear
of
otherness
and
hybridism,
Peña
also
recalls
for
a
shift
of
the
gaze
that
tends
to
be
equivalent
to
dominant,
for
this
change
of
borders,
limits
and
spaces
also
call
for
a
change
in
the
space
that
one
identifies
him/herself
with
-‐
the
Other
might
become
the
Self
rather
easily
(Bhabha).
Measures
like
what
had
started
during
the
90s
and
found
its
most
radical
achievement
during
the
Bush
administration,
the
construction
of
a
wall
equipped
with
surveillance
cameras
and
motion
detectors
by
the
United
States,
which
would
stretch
to
1/3
of
the
border
of
this
country
with
Mexico
-‐
the
so-‐called
Tortilla
Curtain,
by
T.C.
Boyle
(1995)
-‐
seems
to
embody
both
the
figurative
and
metaphorical
boundaries
intended
to
be
built
between
nations
and
cultures,
as
that
same
wall
becomes
both
a
physical
obstacle
and
an
abstract
boundary
to
the
affluence
of
Mexican
individuals
-‐
and
consequently,
cultures
-‐
to
the
reluctant
United
States.
The
notions
of
public
and
private
spaces
get
at
stake
here;
the
1
virtually
communal,
public
ground
of
the
United
States
becomes
a
closed,
private
entity
for
unwanted
Mexican
and
other
immigrants.
Peña
addresses
this
subject
in
an
essay
entitled
“Border
Hysteria
and
the
War
Against
Difference”,
as
he
focuses
on
the
different
views
on
the
wall,
both
by
those
outside
it
and
inside
it:
“Outside
this
country
of
the
US
everyone
asks:
‘Why
does
the
US
need
more
walls
and
more
isolationistic
politics?
Aren't
they
isolated
enough
already?’
But
within
our
borders
Washington
incessantly
chants:
‘National
security!
Homeland
security!’
More
walls,
laws,
and
border
patrols!”
(Peña,
2008:
196).
The
image
of
a
wall
becomes
then
a
complex
metaphor
for
notions
of
surveillance,
belonging,
gazing
and
periphery.
The
wall
itself
becomes
less
relevant
and
easier
to
overcome
than
the
effective
power
and
symbolic
meaning
that
it
embodies.
The
narrative
of
the
other
that
is
constructed
by
the
United
States
and
its
politics
of
surveillance
and
anti-‐terrorism
are
then
constructed
under
a
certain
tone
marked
by
fear,
relying
on
the
immigrant
to
embody
the
guilty
for
all
“social
and
cultural
ills”
(Peña)
and
such
discourse
will
define
who
is
to
get
in
the
country
and
who
gets
to
be
left
out:
“this
is
the
new
brand
of
immigrant
hysteria:
bigger,
better,
whiter”
(Peña,
2008:
195).
Defending
borders,
both
physical
and
metaphorical,
becomes
the
first
step
toward
a
sense
of
establishing
the
other,
while
attempting
to
define
oneself
through
the
wrong
exploration
of
an
original
and
authentic
national
and
cultural
identity
always
in
contrast
with
one;
a
nation
defines
itself
for
what
it
isn’t
rather
than
for
what
it
is.
Wafaa
Bilal’s
performance
And
Counting…
draws
attention
to
another
rather
controversial
activity
taken
into
action
by
the
United
States:
the
war
in
Iraq.
The
piece
consists
in
tattooing
over
the
artist’s
body
a
map
of
Iraq
constituted
of
105,000
dots,
one
for
each
soldier,
both
American
and
Iraqi,
that
has
perished
during
the
conflict.
The
artist,
who
is
Iraqi-‐American
and
therefore,
places
himself
in
between
both
participants
of
the
conflict
regarding
his
sense
of
belonging,
seems
to
embody
the
notion
of
“private
voices,
public
spaces”,
as
his
body
will
work
as
a
personal
space
for
the
performance
and
re-‐enactment
of
a
large
scale
conflict
which
takes
place
in
the
public,
national
stage.
Yet,
with
Bilal’s
performance,
one
is
forced
to
understand
the
implications
that
national
conflicts
do
have
upon
the
personal
and
the
body
of
each
of
its
participants,
both
voluntary
or
not.
A
map
of
a
country
2
becomes
then
the
body
of
the
artist;
the
privacy
of
the
artistic
body
is
set
on
display
at
the
art
gallery,
as
the
boundaries
between
private
and
public
spaces
become
more
fluid,
having
the
body
of
Bilal
as
a
mean
to
perform
that
crossing
of
boundaries.
Quoting
Robert
Harbison’s
Eccentric
Spaces,
“maps
simplify
the
world
somewhat
in
the
way
that
a
heavy
snowfall
does,
give
the
sense
of
starting
over,
clarify
for
those
overstimulated
by
the
ordinary
confusion.
Each
path
in
the
snow
shows,
the
ground
keeps
a
record
but
also
makes
one
feel
there
is
a
manageable
amount
going
on”
(Harbison,
127).
In
a
Strange
Room
(2010),
a
novel
by
the
South-‐African
author
Damon
Galgut,
provides
an
account
of
a
journey
across
Europe,
Asia
and
Africa
by
a
rather
unreliable
narrator,
who
alternates
between
an
“I”
and
the
third
person
singular,
whose
name
“Damon”
might
indicate
a
certain
autobiographical
tone
of
the
novel.
The
book’s
first
chapter,
named
“The
Lover”,
opens
with
Damon’s
(the
character,
and
perhaps
the
author)
stroll
through
a
deserted
street,
only
to
find
another
man
who
mirrors
him,
heading
in
a
different
direction.
The
two
end
up
by
travelling
together
eventually,
a
trip
marked
by
alienation,
homoerotic
desire
and
the
eventual
parting.
Damon,
who
seems
restless
and
unable
to
feel
at
home
in
any
place,
describes
travelling
“a
gesture
inscribed
in
space,
it
vanishes
even
as
it's
made.
You
go
from
one
place
to
another
place,
and
on
to
somewhere
else
again,
and
already
behind
you
there
is
no
trace
that
you
were
ever
there”
(Galgut).
Such
statement
recalls
what
Stuart
Hall
writes
in
Minimal
Selves,
as
he
states
that
“migration
is
a
one
way
trip.
There's
no
'home'
to
go
back
to.”
This
notion
of
traveling
as
a
process
of
“restless
interrogation”
(Chambers,
1994:
2)
is
largely
written
on
by
Galgut:
“As
a
result,
he
is
hardly
ever
happy
in
the
place
where
he
is,
something
in
him
is
already
moving
forward
to
the
next
place,
and
yet
he
is
never
going
towards
something,
always
away,
away.”
Such
can
also
be
found
in
Middlesex,
a
novel
written
by
Jeffrey
Eugenides,
in
which
a
young
man
named
Cal,
who
was
born
an
intersex
and
shifts
between
male
and
female
identities,
as
well
as
Greek
and
American
ones
as
a
third
generation
immigrant,
is
to
decide
between
becoming
a
women
through
a
sex
reassignment
surgery
or
embody
his
male
identity,
the
one
that
he
identifies
with.
Middlesex’s
complexity
can
be
found
in
the
link
between
gendered
and
national
identities,
as
these
are
both
understood
as
performative
and
as
processes
of
3
acculturation,
often
influencing
each
other
mutually,
working
together
for
the
construction
of
one
another.
The
acceptance
of
Cal’s
male
identity
is
done
through
a
journey
in
which
he
engages,
which
will
take
him
to
Berlin,
and
his
adult,
male
life
is
marked
by
a
desire,
as
it
happen
with
Damon
Galgut’s
characters,
of
“never
wanting
to
stay
in
one
place”
(Eugenides),
as
he
becomes
a
border
Sisyphus
(Peña,
i).
This
identification
between
subject
and
space
is
common
to
Cal’s
identification
with
a
fragmented
Berlin,
which
resembles
his
own
divided
body.
The
road
becomes
an
extension
of
the
body
of
the
individual,
a
physical
metaphor
for
the
changes
and
the
path
which
one
has
to
walk
in
order
to
attempt
at
a
construction
of
an
identity,
often
by
trespassing
the
borders
of
what
is
safe.
This
abandonment
of
what
is
known
and
familiar
can
be
both
freeing
and
frightening,
as
it
is
reflected
upon
by
Galgut:
He
has
always
had
a
dread
of
crossing
borders,
he
doesn't
like
to
leave
what's
known
and
safe
for
the
blank
space
beyond
in
which
anything
can
happen.
Everything
at
times
of
transition
takes
on
a
symbolic
weight
and
power.
But
this
too
is
why
he
travels.
The
world
you're
moving
through
flows
into
another
one
inside,
nothing
stays
divided
any
more,
this
stands
for
that,
weather
for
mood,
landscape
for
feeling,
for
every
object
there
is
a
corresponding
inner
gesture,
everything
turns
into
metaphor.
The
border
line
on
a
map,
but
also
drawn
inside
himself
somewhere.
(Galgut)
Galgut
indicates
that
every
transition
takes
on
symbolic
power,
that
one
world
flows
into
another
as
experience
ads
traits
of
character
to
the
individual
that
also
add
up
to
one
another,
never
nullifying
what
preceded
it,
always
adding
up
to
a
never
complete
process
of
self
discovery
and
identification.
The
notion
of
border
becomes
here
both
a
metaphor
and
a
figurative
representation
of
the
ability
of
one
to
overcome
them
and
to
go
beyond,
both
physical
spaces
and
social
constructs.
These
borders,
besides
the
ones
of
the
country,
are
also
the
borders
of
the
body,
of
what
can
be
done
with
it
and
of
what
is
accepted
to
be
done
with
it.
It
is
in
the
blank
space
that
everything
can
happen,
that
experience
will
provide
new
possibilities
for
the
individual
to
grow
and
become
-‐
it
is
on
the
process
of
traveling,
on
the
homelessness
given
by
the
road
that
one
is
able
to
shift,
change
and
become
more
than
what
was
before.
It
is
on
the
road
that
Cal,
in
Middlesex,
can
finally
accept
himself
as
a
man,
it
is
during
the
process
of
traveling
that
he
can
break
the
links
to
his
family
and
to
his
doctor
who
keep
defining
him
as
a
woman.
It
is
then
possible
4
perhaps
to
advance
with
a
theory
which
connects
the
process
of
traveling
and
travel
writing
with
the
process
of
writing
about
nomadic
subjects
and
hybrid
identities,
often
connected
with
fragmentations
of
gender
and
national
configurations,
both
given
by
the
extrapolation
of
the
limits,
on
the
one
hand,
of
the
body,
and
the
nation/country
on
the
other.
The
identification
between
body
and
space,
particularly
to
the
city
of
Berlin
can
also
be
found
in
the
John
Cameron
Mitchell’s
film,
Hedwig
and
the
Angry
Inch.
The
work
of
an
intersection
between
the
glam
rock
of
the
70s,
which
was
in
itself
marked
by
androgyny,
cross
dressing
and
a
dilution
of
gendered
categories,
Plato’s
Symposium
and
a
love
for
the
kitsch
and
the
camp,
the
film
draws
a
rather
interesting
account
of
a
sex
reassignment
surgery
that
goes
terribly
wrong,
leaving
Hedwig,
a
young
woman
born
man,
with
the
angry
inch
of
the
title
as
her
genitals,
neither
corresponding
to
what
is
expected
of
a
man
neither
of
a
woman’s
anatomy.
In
the
beginning
of
the
film,
Hedwig,
still
pursuing
the
dream
of
singing
professionally,
compares
herself
to
the
wall
that,
until
1989,
separated
Germany
in
half.
As
it
was
previously
stated
on
this
paper,
the
figure
of
the
wall
serves
as
metaphor
and
imagery
for
both
an
abstract
and
concrete
separation
between
nations
(and
bodies)
and
such
can
be
found
in
Middlesex,
as
Cal
identifies
himself,
toward
the
end
of
the
novel,
with
the
city
of
Berlin.
It
is
difficult
not
to
find
a
parallel
between
Hedwig
and
Cal’s
words,
as
both
find
in
Berlin
both
identification
and
strangeness,
for
if
Cal
feels
comfortable
in
a
place
that
was
once
divided
and
is
now,
even
if
only
metaphorically,
united,
Hedwig
claims
to
embody
in
herself
that
same
division,
encompassing
though,
both
sides
of
the
wall.
While
Berlin
used
to
be
‘home’
for
Hedwig,
even
though
she
didn’t
feel
comfortable
living
in
only
one
side
of
the
city
but
in
between
both,
the
city
becomes
for
Cal,
who
is
a
foreigner,
a
new
home,
or
at
least
a
new
place
to
be
regardless
of
that
constant
need
to
change,
travel
and
start
anew.
Cal’s
nomadic
identity
seem
to
only
find
relief
and
a
place
for
its
practice
in
a
city
like
Berlin,
marked
by
immigration,
division
and
cultural
hybridism,
as
the
map
of
the
space
and
the
cartography
of
the
body
converge
and
overlap:
Once
again,
in
Berlin,
a
Stephanides
lives
among
the
Turks.
I
feel
comfortable
here
in
Schoneberg.
The
Turkish
shops
along
Hauptstrasse
are
like
those
my
father
used
to
take
me
to.
The
food
is
the
same,
the
dried
figs,
the
halvah,
the
stuffed
grape
leaves.
The
5
faces
are
the
same,
too,
seamed,
dark-‐eyed,
significantly
boned.
Despite
family
history,
I
feel
drawn
to
Turkey.
I'd
like
to
work
in
the
embassy
in
Istanbul.
I've
put
in
a
request
to
be
transferred
there.
It
would
bring
me
full
circle.
(…)
I
watch
the
bread
baker
in
the
doner
restaurant
downstairs.
He
bakes
bread
in
a
stone
oven
like
those
they
used
to
have
in
Smyrna.
(…)
Stephanides,
an
American,
grandchild
of
Greeks,
admires
this
Turkish
immigrant
to
Germany,
this
Gastarbeiter,
as
he
bakes
bread
on
Hauptstrasse
here
in
the
year
2001.
We're
all
made
up
of
many
parts,
other
halves.
Not
just
me.
(Eugenides,
2002:
440)
Traveling
-‐
and
travel
writing
-‐
the
crossing
of
physical
borders
and
this
identification
between
the
body
and
the
surrounding
space
seem
to
function
then
as
a
recurrent
image
for
the
path
that
a
queer
identity
must
walk
toward
the
construction
of
that
same
identity.
For
example,
in
Valencia
(2000),
Michelle
Tea
accounts
for
her
trips
with
her
female
lovers
through
San
Francisco
and
in
every
stop
the
narrator,
who
seems
to
share
with
In
a
Strange
Room
an
autobiographical
tone,
collects
yet
another
tattoo,
another
mark
on
the
map
of
her
body,
signalling
the
process
of
travelling,
both
within
and
beyond
the
limits
of
the
narrator’s
body.
Kate
Bornstein,
a
relevant
figure
in
queer
studies,
wrote
seven
different
versions
of
her
biographical
account
for
the
book
O
Solo
Homo:
the
New
Queer
Performance,
(1998),
a
compilation
of
transcriptions
of
several
performances,
edited
by
Holly
Hughes
and
David
Roman.
Besides
the
“boring”
one,
Bornstein
playfully
describes
herself
as:
KATE
BORNSTEIN
has
called
over
fifty-‐five
geographical
location
‘home’.
Identitywise,
she
has
transioned
from
boy
to
man,
from
man
to
woman,
from
woman
to
lesbian,
from
lesbian
to
artist,
from
artist
to
sex
worker,
and
it’s
taken
her
nearly
fifty
five
years
of
living
to
discover
that
she’s
actually
more
comfortable
transitioning
than
she
is
arriving
at
some
resting
place
called
identity
(…)
KATE
BORNSTEIN,
travelling.
(Bornstein,
234-‐235)
Bornstein
will
serve
has
a
settler
for
the
main
argument
of
this
paper:
the
homelessness
of
both
a
place
to
call
home
and
a
body
reduced
to
the
simplicity
of
a
male/female
set
of
codes
provide
the
artist
a
possibility
to
fully
engage
with
the
surrounding
milieu,
as
she
or
he
prefers
to
travel
instead
of
settling,
both
physically
and
ideologically,
as
identity
is
then
faced
not
as
the
finish
line
but
as
the
path
that
one
is
to
choose
-‐
or
refuse
-‐
travel
and
endure.
6
These
examples,
though
distinct
from
the
others
when
it
comes
to
their
geographical
production,
author
and
theme,
have
here
the
purpose
of
calling
attention
to
the
relevance
of
travelling
and
to
the
imagery
of
the
nomadic
subject
as
a
recurrent
vocabulary
for
the
writing
of
identity,
especially,
one
may
conclude,
an
identity
that
does
not
obey
to
the
dichotomies
of
male/female,
heterosexual/homosexual.
Damon
Galgut’s
In
a
Strange
Room
is
marked
by
an
homoerotic
undertone;
Michelle
Tea’s
characters
are
a
group
of
lesbian
and
bisexual
women
who
explore
their
sexuality
in
an
urban
space;
Kate
Bornstein
is
a
well
known
male
to
female
transgender
and
Cal,
the
main
character
in
Middlesex
is
a
hermaphrodite.
Hence,
travelling
and
the
concept
of
being
a
nomad
seem
to
work
as
a
proper
metaphor
for
the
writing
about
identity
which
does
not
obey
to
categories
and
gendered
notions
of
identity.
Cal’s
self
imposed
exile
in
order
to
escape
his
sex
reassignment
surgery
will
result
in
a
new
Cal,
one
that
“was
fleeing
myself
[Cal].
I
felt
that
I
was
saving
myself
just
as
definitively.
I
was
fleeing
without
much
money
in
my
pocket
and
under
the
alias
of
a
new
gender
(…)
I
was
becoming
a
new
person.”
(Eugenides,
2002:
443)
According
to
Said,
“the
exile
knows
that
in
a
secular
and
contingent
world,
homes
are
always
provisional.
Borders
and
barriers
which
enclose
us
within
the
safety
of
familiar
territory
can
also
become
prisons,
and
are
often
defended
beyond
reason
or
necessity.
Exiles
cross
borders,
break
barriers
of
thought
and
experience.”
Such
can
be
linked
to
Foucault’s
concept
of
“crisis
heterotopias”
and
“heterotopias
of
deviation”,
given
that
Cal’s
categorization
as
both
an
adolescent
and
a
hermaphrodite
assumes
two
status
capable
of
being
restricted
to
spaces
which
attempt
at
controlling
that
same
crisis
or
deviance,
turning
his
‘home’
in
a
space
of
reclusion,
being
possible
then
to
read
Cal’s
body
as
“the
heterotopia
(…)
capable
of
juxtaposing
in
a
single
real
place
several
spaces,
several
sites
that
are
in
themselves
incompatible”
(Foulcaut,
25).
After
saying
goodbye
to
his
parents
through
a
letter
Cal
runs
away,
in
a
chapter
adequately
entitled
“Go
West,
Young
Man!”,
cuts
his
hair,
wears
men’s
clothing,
evoking
the
performative
aspect
of
identity
and
gender.
As
he
advances
on
the
road,
Cal’s
body
suffers
physical
alterations
that
define
him
as
a
man,
as
each
step
on
the
road
becomes
a
difference
that
takes
place
upon
the
body,
that
same
7
identification
between
body
and
space,
personal
and
public
that
has
been
discussed
in
this
paper:
After
Ohio
came
Indiana,
Illinois,
Iowa,
and
Nebraska.
I
rode
in
station
wagons,
sport
cars,
rented
vans.
Single
women
never
picked
me
up,
only
men,
or
men
with
women.
A
pair
of
Dutch
tourists
stopped
for
me,
complaining
about
the
frigidity
of
American
beer,
and
sometimes
I
got
rides
from
couples
who
were
fighting
and
tired
of
each
other.
In
every
case,
people
took
me
for
the
teenage
boy
I
was
every
minute
more
conclusively
becoming.
Sophie
Sassoon
wasn't
around
to
wax
my
mustache,
so
it
began
to
fill
in,
a
smudge
above
my
upper
lip.
My
voice
continued
to
deepen.
Every
jolt
in
the
road
dropped
my
Adam's
apple
another
notch
in
my
neck.
(Eugenides,
2002:
448-‐449)
Cal’s
body
becomes
then
a
stage
for
the
performance
of
several
voices,
being
those
the
discourses
of
gender,
nation
and
sexuality.
The
relevance
that
is
provided
to
travelling
also
incites
to
the
disruption
of
the
physical
boundaries
of
space,
for
Cal’s
nomadic
state
recalls
for
the
ability
of
the
private
to
meander
through
public
spaces,
free
from
categories.
The
identification
between
body
and
space
(and
the
fragmentation
of
both)
recalls
for
a
new
way
of
writing
about
body
and
space,
in
which
both
are
understood
as
spaces
for
the
production
of
communal
and
personal
identities.
Nation
and
gender,
both
aspects
of
an
individual
personality
can
also
be
perceived
as
aspects
at
stake
within
the
social
environment,
and
the
concept
of
home
can
become
as
small
as
one’s
body
or
core
family
or
as
encompassing
as
a
nation
or
a
whole
country
-‐
in
Cal’s
case,
home
seems
to
rely
on
the
self
alone,
as
homelessness
becomes,
almost
paradoxically,
the
only
giver
of
a
sense
of
belonging
to
Cal.
Yet,
even
though
these
gender
and
national
borders
can
seem
to
be
easily
crossed,
overlapped
and
even
erased
(the
metaphor
of
the
Berlin
Wall
fitting
perfectly
in
such
notion),
the
alien
category
given
to
the
illegal
immigrant
and
the
queer
body
is
yet
to
be
reconfigured
and
placed,
for
it
is
often
reduced
to
the
periphery,
both
abstract
and
concrete,
often
misinterpreted
and
misrepresented
due
to
stereotypes
and
preconceived
social
prejudice
and
constrictions.
From
Adrienne
Rich’s
politics
of
location
to
Said’s
orientalism
and
even
to
Bhabha’s
creation
of
a
third
space
of
representation,
one
must
be
aware
of
the
relevance
the
placement
(and/or
displacement)
of
subjects,
of
how
discourse
takes
place
within
zones
of
convergence
or
contrast,
of
how
geography
has
managed
to
establish
a
ground
for
8
the
writing
of
other
identities,
of
alternative
selves
who
escape
the
matrix
of
bordered
places
of
representation
and
enunciation,
presenting
spaces
for
the
practice
of
what
is
to
be
considered
new
and
deviant
ways
of
being.
These
borders
are
not
to
be
understood
as
merely
metaphorical,
neither
are
the
peripheral
zones
that
both
illegal
immigrants
and
transsexual,
intersexual
and
queer
bodies
occupy
within
society
meant
to
be
seen
as
purely
abstract.
The
recurrence
to
a
vocabulary
which
evokes
mapping
and
travelling
is
not
arbitrary,
neither
are
the
implications
of
space
and
who
has
the
right
to
occupy
it
purely
inoffensive.
The
artists
that
were
mentioned
in
this
paper,
and
many
other,
have
provided
in
their
way
new
accounts
of
the
illegal,
the
alien,
the
marginalized
voices,
both
in
the
matters
of
what
is
understood
to
be
a
national
or
a
gendered
identity.
Such
artists
also
seem
to
create
through
their
work
-‐
which
often
implies
the
use
of
his
or
her
body
-‐
a
bridge
between
public
and
private
spaces,
between
male
and
female
spheres
and
one
cannot
deny
the
entanglement
between
both
nation
and
gender
and
the
performative
aspect
of
both.
Providing
a
short
yet
complex
view
on
the
matters
of
the
body
and
the
space
which
surrounds
it,
namely
a
nation,
one
could
perhaps
summarize
such
thoughts
by
recurring
to
Al
Berto,
a
Portuguese
author
who
has
definitely
found
through
his
work
a
way
to
move
across
borders
of
thought.
Lunário
is
an
account
of
the
trips
of
Beno,
a
loner
who
measures
his
steps
on
the
road
by
Velvet
Underground
songs,
as
he
accounts
for
the
same
entrapments
that
Cal
has
suffered
due
to
a
so-‐called
deviant
sexual
conduct,
where
relief
can
only
be
provided
by
the
experimentation
of
the
body
as
it
is.
The
country,
nation
or
whatever
other
institutionalized
construction
can
only
then
be
perceived
as
castrating,
and
its
definition
upon
the
map
can
only
be
perceived
as
imaginary,
for
those
who
inhabit
it
no
longer
identify
themselves
with
it;
the
boundaries
between
space
and
body
become
fluid
and
liquid,
the
latter
being
the
place
for
the
performance
of
a
thought
and
discourse
free
from
categorization:
The
body,
that
somewhat
habitable
country,
in
which
nothing
reminded
him
of
that
other
country
geographically
defined
upon
the
maps,
which
everybody
insisted
in
telling
them
that
it
was
his
country.
The
body
always
evoked
another
luminous
place,
distant,
where
he
could
act
and
breathe,
think
and
move
freely.
(Al
Berto.
Lunário.
Assírio
&
Alvim:
Lisboa,
1988.
p.
18)
9
References
Berto,
Al.
Lunário.
(1999).
Lisboa:
Assírio
&
Alvim,
2012.
Chambers,
Iain.
Migrancy,
Culture,
Identity.
London:
Routledge,
1994.
Eugenides,
Jeffrey.
Middlesex.
London,
Bloomsbury,
2002.
Foucault,
Michel:
“Des
Espaces
Autres”
[Conférence
au
Cercle
d'Etudes
Architecturales,
14
de
Março
de
1967],
in
Architecture,
Mouvement,
Continuité,
n°5,
Octobre
1984,
pp.
46-‐49.
-‐-‐-‐.
History
of
Sexuality,
Vol.
1:
An
Introduction.
1976.
Trans.
Robert
Hurley.
London:
Penguin
Books,
1987.
Galgut,
Damon.
In
a
Strange
Room.
New
York:
Europa
Editions,
2010.
Harbison,
Robert.
Eccentric
Spaces.
New
York,
Knopf,
1977.
Hughes,
Holly
and
Román,
David,
Eds.
O
Solo
Homo:
the
New
Queer
Performance.
New
York:
Grove
Press,
1998.
Peña,
Guillermo
Gomez.
Border
Hysteria
and
the
War
against
Difference.
TDR/The
Drama
Review,
Spring
2008,
Vol.
52,
No.
1
,
Pages
196-‐203.
-‐-‐-‐.
The
New
World
Border:
Prophecies,
Poems,
and
Loqueras
for
the
End
of
the
Century.
San
Francisco:
City
Lights,
1996.
Tea,
Michelle.
Valencia.
New
York:
Seal
Press,
2000.
10
Carry
this
Map
of
Ourselves
Around”:
Mapping
the
Queer
Body
“I
have
become
used
to
wearing,
it
seems,
the
constant
pose
of
the
foreigner.”
(Zambreno,
Heroines:
17)
In
the
introduction
to
his
book
New
World
Borders,
Guillermo
Gomez
Peña
attempts
at
encompassing
his
multi-‐faceted
identity
by
recurring
to
geographic
locations
and
to
travelling-‐related
vocabulary:
“I
am
a
nomadic
Mexican
artist/writer
in
the
process
of
chicanization,
which
means
I
am
slowly
heading
North.
My
journey
not
only
goes
from
South
to
North,
but
from
Spanish
to
Spanglish,
and
then
to
English
(…)
and
from
a
static
sense
of
identity
to
a
repertoire
of
multiple
identities.”
(Peña,
1996:
i).
The
author
also
focuses
on
the
relevance
of
the
production
of
culture
within
a
certain
milieu,
grounded
on
politics
of
location,
as
he
enquires
“what
does
it
mean
to
be
alive
and
to
make
art
in
an
apocalyptic
era
framed/reframed
by
changing
borders,
feracious
racial
violence,
irrational
fears
of
otherness
and
hibridity,
spiritual
emptiness,
AIDS
and
other
massively
destructive
diseases,
ecological
devastation,
and,
of
course,
lots
of
virtual
space?”
(Peña,
1996:
i).
In
such
statement,
the
responsibility
of
the
artist
and
the
responsibility
of
the
citizen
become
one,
as
the
notion
of
a
politically
engaged
art
calls
for
the
need
for
a
dilution
of
the
spaces
for
the
production
and
consumerism
of
art,
for
the
approximation
of
private
and
public
spheres.
By
calling
attention
to
these
changing
borders
and
the
fear
of
otherness
and
hybridism,
Peña
also
recalls
for
a
shift
of
the
gaze
that
tends
to
be
equivalent
to
dominant,
for
this
change
of
borders,
limits
and
spaces
also
call
for
a
change
in
the
space
that
one
identifies
him/herself
with
-‐
the
Other
might
become
the
Self
rather
easily
(Bhabha).
Measures
like
what
had
started
during
the
90s
and
found
its
most
radical
achievement
during
the
Bush
administration,
the
construction
of
a
wall
equipped
with
surveillance
cameras
and
motion
detectors
by
the
United
States,
which
would
stretch
to
1/3
of
the
border
of
this
country
with
Mexico
-‐
the
so-‐called
Tortilla
Curtain,
by
T.C.
Boyle
(1995)
-‐
seems
to
embody
both
the
figurative
and
metaphorical
boundaries
intended
to
be
built
between
nations
and
cultures,
as
that
same
wall
becomes
both
a
physical
obstacle
and
an
abstract
boundary
to
the
affluence
of
Mexican
individuals
-‐
and
consequently,
cultures
-‐
to
the
reluctant
United
States.
The
notions
of
public
and
private
spaces
get
at
stake
here;
the
1
virtually
communal,
public
ground
of
the
United
States
becomes
a
closed,
private
entity
for
unwanted
Mexican
and
other
immigrants.
Peña
addresses
this
subject
in
an
essay
entitled
“Border
Hysteria
and
the
War
Against
Difference”,
as
he
focuses
on
the
different
views
on
the
wall,
both
by
those
outside
it
and
inside
it:
“Outside
this
country
of
the
US
everyone
asks:
‘Why
does
the
US
need
more
walls
and
more
isolationistic
politics?
Aren't
they
isolated
enough
already?’
But
within
our
borders
Washington
incessantly
chants:
‘National
security!
Homeland
security!’
More
walls,
laws,
and
border
patrols!”
(Peña,
2008:
196).
The
image
of
a
wall
becomes
then
a
complex
metaphor
for
notions
of
surveillance,
belonging,
gazing
and
periphery.
The
wall
itself
becomes
less
relevant
and
easier
to
overcome
than
the
effective
power
and
symbolic
meaning
that
it
embodies.
The
narrative
of
the
other
that
is
constructed
by
the
United
States
and
its
politics
of
surveillance
and
anti-‐terrorism
are
then
constructed
under
a
certain
tone
marked
by
fear,
relying
on
the
immigrant
to
embody
the
guilty
for
all
“social
and
cultural
ills”
(Peña)
and
such
discourse
will
define
who
is
to
get
in
the
country
and
who
gets
to
be
left
out:
“this
is
the
new
brand
of
immigrant
hysteria:
bigger,
better,
whiter”
(Peña,
2008:
195).
Defending
borders,
both
physical
and
metaphorical,
becomes
the
first
step
toward
a
sense
of
establishing
the
other,
while
attempting
to
define
oneself
through
the
wrong
exploration
of
an
original
and
authentic
national
and
cultural
identity
always
in
contrast
with
one;
a
nation
defines
itself
for
what
it
isn’t
rather
than
for
what
it
is.
Wafaa
Bilal’s
performance
And
Counting…
draws
attention
to
another
rather
controversial
activity
taken
into
action
by
the
United
States:
the
war
in
Iraq.
The
piece
consists
in
tattooing
over
the
artist’s
body
a
map
of
Iraq
constituted
of
105,000
dots,
one
for
each
soldier,
both
American
and
Iraqi,
that
has
perished
during
the
conflict.
The
artist,
who
is
Iraqi-‐American
and
therefore,
places
himself
in
between
both
participants
of
the
conflict
regarding
his
sense
of
belonging,
seems
to
embody
the
notion
of
“private
voices,
public
spaces”,
as
his
body
will
work
as
a
personal
space
for
the
performance
and
re-‐enactment
of
a
large
scale
conflict
which
takes
place
in
the
public,
national
stage.
Yet,
with
Bilal’s
performance,
one
is
forced
to
understand
the
implications
that
national
conflicts
do
have
upon
the
personal
and
the
body
of
each
of
its
participants,
both
voluntary
or
not.
A
map
of
a
country
2
becomes
then
the
body
of
the
artist;
the
privacy
of
the
artistic
body
is
set
on
display
at
the
art
gallery,
as
the
boundaries
between
private
and
public
spaces
become
more
fluid,
having
the
body
of
Bilal
as
a
mean
to
perform
that
crossing
of
boundaries.
Quoting
Robert
Harbison’s
Eccentric
Spaces,
“maps
simplify
the
world
somewhat
in
the
way
that
a
heavy
snowfall
does,
give
the
sense
of
starting
over,
clarify
for
those
overstimulated
by
the
ordinary
confusion.
Each
path
in
the
snow
shows,
the
ground
keeps
a
record
but
also
makes
one
feel
there
is
a
manageable
amount
going
on”
(Harbison,
127).
In
a
Strange
Room
(2010),
a
novel
by
the
South-‐African
author
Damon
Galgut,
provides
an
account
of
a
journey
across
Europe,
Asia
and
Africa
by
a
rather
unreliable
narrator,
who
alternates
between
an
“I”
and
the
third
person
singular,
whose
name
“Damon”
might
indicate
a
certain
autobiographical
tone
of
the
novel.
The
book’s
first
chapter,
named
“The
Lover”,
opens
with
Damon’s
(the
character,
and
perhaps
the
author)
stroll
through
a
deserted
street,
only
to
find
another
man
who
mirrors
him,
heading
in
a
different
direction.
The
two
end
up
by
travelling
together
eventually,
a
trip
marked
by
alienation,
homoerotic
desire
and
the
eventual
parting.
Damon,
who
seems
restless
and
unable
to
feel
at
home
in
any
place,
describes
travelling
“a
gesture
inscribed
in
space,
it
vanishes
even
as
it's
made.
You
go
from
one
place
to
another
place,
and
on
to
somewhere
else
again,
and
already
behind
you
there
is
no
trace
that
you
were
ever
there”
(Galgut).
Such
statement
recalls
what
Stuart
Hall
writes
in
Minimal
Selves,
as
he
states
that
“migration
is
a
one
way
trip.
There's
no
'home'
to
go
back
to.”
This
notion
of
traveling
as
a
process
of
“restless
interrogation”
(Chambers,
1994:
2)
is
largely
written
on
by
Galgut:
“As
a
result,
he
is
hardly
ever
happy
in
the
place
where
he
is,
something
in
him
is
already
moving
forward
to
the
next
place,
and
yet
he
is
never
going
towards
something,
always
away,
away.”
Such
can
also
be
found
in
Middlesex,
a
novel
written
by
Jeffrey
Eugenides,
in
which
a
young
man
named
Cal,
who
was
born
an
intersex
and
shifts
between
male
and
female
identities,
as
well
as
Greek
and
American
ones
as
a
third
generation
immigrant,
is
to
decide
between
becoming
a
women
through
a
sex
reassignment
surgery
or
embody
his
male
identity,
the
one
that
he
identifies
with.
Middlesex’s
complexity
can
be
found
in
the
link
between
gendered
and
national
identities,
as
these
are
both
understood
as
performative
and
as
processes
of
3
acculturation,
often
influencing
each
other
mutually,
working
together
for
the
construction
of
one
another.
The
acceptance
of
Cal’s
male
identity
is
done
through
a
journey
in
which
he
engages,
which
will
take
him
to
Berlin,
and
his
adult,
male
life
is
marked
by
a
desire,
as
it
happen
with
Damon
Galgut’s
characters,
of
“never
wanting
to
stay
in
one
place”
(Eugenides),
as
he
becomes
a
border
Sisyphus
(Peña,
i).
This
identification
between
subject
and
space
is
common
to
Cal’s
identification
with
a
fragmented
Berlin,
which
resembles
his
own
divided
body.
The
road
becomes
an
extension
of
the
body
of
the
individual,
a
physical
metaphor
for
the
changes
and
the
path
which
one
has
to
walk
in
order
to
attempt
at
a
construction
of
an
identity,
often
by
trespassing
the
borders
of
what
is
safe.
This
abandonment
of
what
is
known
and
familiar
can
be
both
freeing
and
frightening,
as
it
is
reflected
upon
by
Galgut:
He
has
always
had
a
dread
of
crossing
borders,
he
doesn't
like
to
leave
what's
known
and
safe
for
the
blank
space
beyond
in
which
anything
can
happen.
Everything
at
times
of
transition
takes
on
a
symbolic
weight
and
power.
But
this
too
is
why
he
travels.
The
world
you're
moving
through
flows
into
another
one
inside,
nothing
stays
divided
any
more,
this
stands
for
that,
weather
for
mood,
landscape
for
feeling,
for
every
object
there
is
a
corresponding
inner
gesture,
everything
turns
into
metaphor.
The
border
line
on
a
map,
but
also
drawn
inside
himself
somewhere.
(Galgut)
Galgut
indicates
that
every
transition
takes
on
symbolic
power,
that
one
world
flows
into
another
as
experience
ads
traits
of
character
to
the
individual
that
also
add
up
to
one
another,
never
nullifying
what
preceded
it,
always
adding
up
to
a
never
complete
process
of
self
discovery
and
identification.
The
notion
of
border
becomes
here
both
a
metaphor
and
a
figurative
representation
of
the
ability
of
one
to
overcome
them
and
to
go
beyond,
both
physical
spaces
and
social
constructs.
These
borders,
besides
the
ones
of
the
country,
are
also
the
borders
of
the
body,
of
what
can
be
done
with
it
and
of
what
is
accepted
to
be
done
with
it.
It
is
in
the
blank
space
that
everything
can
happen,
that
experience
will
provide
new
possibilities
for
the
individual
to
grow
and
become
-‐
it
is
on
the
process
of
traveling,
on
the
homelessness
given
by
the
road
that
one
is
able
to
shift,
change
and
become
more
than
what
was
before.
It
is
on
the
road
that
Cal,
in
Middlesex,
can
finally
accept
himself
as
a
man,
it
is
during
the
process
of
traveling
that
he
can
break
the
links
to
his
family
and
to
his
doctor
who
keep
defining
him
as
a
woman.
It
is
then
possible
4
perhaps
to
advance
with
a
theory
which
connects
the
process
of
traveling
and
travel
writing
with
the
process
of
writing
about
nomadic
subjects
and
hybrid
identities,
often
connected
with
fragmentations
of
gender
and
national
configurations,
both
given
by
the
extrapolation
of
the
limits,
on
the
one
hand,
of
the
body,
and
the
nation/country
on
the
other.
The
identification
between
body
and
space,
particularly
to
the
city
of
Berlin
can
also
be
found
in
the
John
Cameron
Mitchell’s
film,
Hedwig
and
the
Angry
Inch.
The
work
of
an
intersection
between
the
glam
rock
of
the
70s,
which
was
in
itself
marked
by
androgyny,
cross
dressing
and
a
dilution
of
gendered
categories,
Plato’s
Symposium
and
a
love
for
the
kitsch
and
the
camp,
the
film
draws
a
rather
interesting
account
of
a
sex
reassignment
surgery
that
goes
terribly
wrong,
leaving
Hedwig,
a
young
woman
born
man,
with
the
angry
inch
of
the
title
as
her
genitals,
neither
corresponding
to
what
is
expected
of
a
man
neither
of
a
woman’s
anatomy.
In
the
beginning
of
the
film,
Hedwig,
still
pursuing
the
dream
of
singing
professionally,
compares
herself
to
the
wall
that,
until
1989,
separated
Germany
in
half.
As
it
was
previously
stated
on
this
paper,
the
figure
of
the
wall
serves
as
metaphor
and
imagery
for
both
an
abstract
and
concrete
separation
between
nations
(and
bodies)
and
such
can
be
found
in
Middlesex,
as
Cal
identifies
himself,
toward
the
end
of
the
novel,
with
the
city
of
Berlin.
It
is
difficult
not
to
find
a
parallel
between
Hedwig
and
Cal’s
words,
as
both
find
in
Berlin
both
identification
and
strangeness,
for
if
Cal
feels
comfortable
in
a
place
that
was
once
divided
and
is
now,
even
if
only
metaphorically,
united,
Hedwig
claims
to
embody
in
herself
that
same
division,
encompassing
though,
both
sides
of
the
wall.
While
Berlin
used
to
be
‘home’
for
Hedwig,
even
though
she
didn’t
feel
comfortable
living
in
only
one
side
of
the
city
but
in
between
both,
the
city
becomes
for
Cal,
who
is
a
foreigner,
a
new
home,
or
at
least
a
new
place
to
be
regardless
of
that
constant
need
to
change,
travel
and
start
anew.
Cal’s
nomadic
identity
seem
to
only
find
relief
and
a
place
for
its
practice
in
a
city
like
Berlin,
marked
by
immigration,
division
and
cultural
hybridism,
as
the
map
of
the
space
and
the
cartography
of
the
body
converge
and
overlap:
Once
again,
in
Berlin,
a
Stephanides
lives
among
the
Turks.
I
feel
comfortable
here
in
Schoneberg.
The
Turkish
shops
along
Hauptstrasse
are
like
those
my
father
used
to
take
me
to.
The
food
is
the
same,
the
dried
figs,
the
halvah,
the
stuffed
grape
leaves.
The
5
faces
are
the
same,
too,
seamed,
dark-‐eyed,
significantly
boned.
Despite
family
history,
I
feel
drawn
to
Turkey.
I'd
like
to
work
in
the
embassy
in
Istanbul.
I've
put
in
a
request
to
be
transferred
there.
It
would
bring
me
full
circle.
(…)
I
watch
the
bread
baker
in
the
doner
restaurant
downstairs.
He
bakes
bread
in
a
stone
oven
like
those
they
used
to
have
in
Smyrna.
(…)
Stephanides,
an
American,
grandchild
of
Greeks,
admires
this
Turkish
immigrant
to
Germany,
this
Gastarbeiter,
as
he
bakes
bread
on
Hauptstrasse
here
in
the
year
2001.
We're
all
made
up
of
many
parts,
other
halves.
Not
just
me.
(Eugenides,
2002:
440)
Traveling
-‐
and
travel
writing
-‐
the
crossing
of
physical
borders
and
this
identification
between
the
body
and
the
surrounding
space
seem
to
function
then
as
a
recurrent
image
for
the
path
that
a
queer
identity
must
walk
toward
the
construction
of
that
same
identity.
For
example,
in
Valencia
(2000),
Michelle
Tea
accounts
for
her
trips
with
her
female
lovers
through
San
Francisco
and
in
every
stop
the
narrator,
who
seems
to
share
with
In
a
Strange
Room
an
autobiographical
tone,
collects
yet
another
tattoo,
another
mark
on
the
map
of
her
body,
signalling
the
process
of
travelling,
both
within
and
beyond
the
limits
of
the
narrator’s
body.
Kate
Bornstein,
a
relevant
figure
in
queer
studies,
wrote
seven
different
versions
of
her
biographical
account
for
the
book
O
Solo
Homo:
the
New
Queer
Performance,
(1998),
a
compilation
of
transcriptions
of
several
performances,
edited
by
Holly
Hughes
and
David
Roman.
Besides
the
“boring”
one,
Bornstein
playfully
describes
herself
as:
KATE
BORNSTEIN
has
called
over
fifty-‐five
geographical
location
‘home’.
Identitywise,
she
has
transioned
from
boy
to
man,
from
man
to
woman,
from
woman
to
lesbian,
from
lesbian
to
artist,
from
artist
to
sex
worker,
and
it’s
taken
her
nearly
fifty
five
years
of
living
to
discover
that
she’s
actually
more
comfortable
transitioning
than
she
is
arriving
at
some
resting
place
called
identity
(…)
KATE
BORNSTEIN,
travelling.
(Bornstein,
234-‐235)
Bornstein
will
serve
has
a
settler
for
the
main
argument
of
this
paper:
the
homelessness
of
both
a
place
to
call
home
and
a
body
reduced
to
the
simplicity
of
a
male/female
set
of
codes
provide
the
artist
a
possibility
to
fully
engage
with
the
surrounding
milieu,
as
she
or
he
prefers
to
travel
instead
of
settling,
both
physically
and
ideologically,
as
identity
is
then
faced
not
as
the
finish
line
but
as
the
path
that
one
is
to
choose
-‐
or
refuse
-‐
travel
and
endure.
6
These
examples,
though
distinct
from
the
others
when
it
comes
to
their
geographical
production,
author
and
theme,
have
here
the
purpose
of
calling
attention
to
the
relevance
of
travelling
and
to
the
imagery
of
the
nomadic
subject
as
a
recurrent
vocabulary
for
the
writing
of
identity,
especially,
one
may
conclude,
an
identity
that
does
not
obey
to
the
dichotomies
of
male/female,
heterosexual/homosexual.
Damon
Galgut’s
In
a
Strange
Room
is
marked
by
an
homoerotic
undertone;
Michelle
Tea’s
characters
are
a
group
of
lesbian
and
bisexual
women
who
explore
their
sexuality
in
an
urban
space;
Kate
Bornstein
is
a
well
known
male
to
female
transgender
and
Cal,
the
main
character
in
Middlesex
is
a
hermaphrodite.
Hence,
travelling
and
the
concept
of
being
a
nomad
seem
to
work
as
a
proper
metaphor
for
the
writing
about
identity
which
does
not
obey
to
categories
and
gendered
notions
of
identity.
Cal’s
self
imposed
exile
in
order
to
escape
his
sex
reassignment
surgery
will
result
in
a
new
Cal,
one
that
“was
fleeing
myself
[Cal].
I
felt
that
I
was
saving
myself
just
as
definitively.
I
was
fleeing
without
much
money
in
my
and
under
the
alias
of
a
new
gender
(…)
I
was
becoming
a
new
person.”
(Eugenides,
2002:
443)
According
to
Said,
“the
exile
knows
that
in
a
secular
and
contingent
world,
homes
are
always
provisional.
Borders
and
barriers
which
enclose
us
within
the
safety
of
familiar
territory
can
also
become
prisons,
and
are
often
defended
beyond
reason
or
necessity.
Exiles
cross
borders,
break
barriers
of
thought
and
experience.”
Such
can
be
linked
to
Foucault’s
concept
of
“crisis
heterotopias”
and
“heterotopias
of
deviation”,
given
that
Cal’s
categorization
as
both
an
adolescent
and
a
hermaphrodite
assumes
two
status
capable
of
being
restricted
to
spaces
which
attempt
at
controlling
that
same
crisis
or
deviance,
turning
his
‘home’
in
a
space
of
reclusion,
being
possible
then
to
read
Cal’s
body
as
“the
heterotopia
(…)
capable
of
juxtaposing
in
a
single
real
place
several
spaces,
several
sites
that
are
in
themselves
incompatible”
(Foulcaut,
25).
After
saying
goodbye
to
his
parents
through
a
letter
Cal
runs
away,
in
a
chapter
adequately
entitled
“Go
West,
Young
Man!”,
cuts
his
hair,
wears
men’s
clothing,
evoking
the
performative
aspect
of
identity
and
gender.
As
he
advances
on
the
road,
Cal’s
body
suffers
physical
alterations
that
define
him
as
a
man,
as
each
step
on
the
road
becomes
a
difference
that
takes
place
upon
the
body,
that
same
7
identification
between
body
and
space,
personal
and
public
that
has
been
discussed
in
this
paper:
After
Ohio
came
Indiana,
Illinois,
Iowa,
and
Nebraska.
I
rode
in
station
wagons,
sport
cars,
rented
vans.
Single
women
never
picked
me
up,
only
men,
or
men
with
women.
A
pair
of
Dutch
tourists
stopped
for
me,
complaining
about
the
frigidity
of
American
beer,
and
sometimes
I
got
rides
from
couples
who
were
fighting
and
tired
of
each
other.
In
every
case,
people
took
me
for
the
teenage
boy
I
was
every
minute
more
conclusively
becoming.
Sophie
Sassoon
wasn't
around
to
wax
my
mustache,
so
it
began
to
fill
in,
a
smudge
above
my
upper
lip.
My
voice
continued
to
deepen.
Every
jolt
in
the
road
dropped
my
Adam's
apple
another
notch
in
my
neck.
(Eugenides,
2002:
448-‐449)
Cal’s
body
becomes
then
a
stage
for
the
performance
of
several
voices,
being
those
the
discourses
of
gender,
nation
and
sexuality.
The
relevance
that
is
provided
to
travelling
also
incites
to
the
disruption
of
the
physical
boundaries
of
space,
for
Cal’s
nomadic
state
recalls
for
the
ability
of
the
private
to
meander
through
public
spaces,
free
from
categories.
The
identification
between
body
and
space
(and
the
fragmentation
of
both)
recalls
for
a
new
way
of
writing
about
body
and
space,
in
which
both
are
understood
as
spaces
for
the
production
of
communal
and
personal
identities.
Nation
and
gender,
both
aspects
of
an
individual
personality
can
also
be
perceived
as
aspects
at
stake
within
the
social
environment,
and
the
concept
of
home
can
become
as
small
as
one’s
body
or
core
family
or
as
encompassing
as
a
nation
or
a
whole
country
-‐
in
Cal’s
case,
home
seems
to
rely
on
the
self
alone,
as
homelessness
becomes,
almost
paradoxically,
the
only
giver
of
a
sense
of
belonging
to
Cal.
Yet,
even
though
these
gender
and
national
borders
can
seem
to
be
easily
crossed,
overlapped
and
even
erased
(the
metaphor
of
the
Berlin
Wall
fitting
perfectly
in
such
notion),
the
alien
category
given
to
the
illegal
immigrant
and
the
queer
body
is
yet
to
be
reconfigured
and
placed,
for
it
is
often
reduced
to
the
periphery,
both
abstract
and
concrete,
often
misinterpreted
and
misrepresented
due
to
stereotypes
and
preconceived
social
prejudice
and
constrictions.
From
Adrienne
Rich’s
politics
of
location
to
Said’s
orientalism
and
even
to
Bhabha’s
creation
of
a
third
space
of
representation,
one
must
be
aware
of
the
relevance
the
placement
(and/or
displacement)
of
subjects,
of
how
discourse
takes
place
within
zones
of
convergence
or
contrast,
of
how
geography
has
managed
to
establish
a
ground
for
8
the
writing
of
other
identities,
of
alternative
selves
who
escape
the
matrix
of
bordered
places
of
representation
and
enunciation,
presenting
spaces
for
the
practice
of
what
is
to
be
considered
new
and
deviant
ways
of
being.
These
borders
are
not
to
be
understood
as
merely
metaphorical,
neither
are
the
peripheral
zones
that
both
illegal
immigrants
and
transsexual,
intersexual
and
queer
bodies
occupy
within
society
meant
to
be
seen
as
purely
abstract.
The
recurrence
to
a
vocabulary
which
evokes
mapping
and
travelling
is
not
arbitrary,
neither
are
the
implications
of
space
and
who
has
the
right
to
occupy
it
purely
inoffensive.
The
artists
that
were
mentioned
in
this
paper,
and
many
other,
have
provided
in
their
way
new
accounts
of
the
illegal,
the
alien,
the
marginalized
voices,
both
in
the
matters
of
what
is
understood
to
be
a
national
or
a
gendered
identity.
Such
artists
also
seem
to
create
through
their
work
-‐
which
often
implies
the
use
of
his
or
her
body
-‐
a
bridge
between
public
and
private
spaces,
between
male
and
female
spheres
and
one
cannot
deny
the
entanglement
between
both
nation
and
gender
and
the
performative
aspect
of
both.
Providing
a
short
yet
complex
view
on
the
matters
of
the
body
and
the
space
which
surrounds
it,
namely
a
nation,
one
could
perhaps
summarize
such
thoughts
by
recurring
to
Al
Berto,
a
Portuguese
author
who
has
definitely
found
through
his
work
a
way
to
move
across
borders
of
thought.
Lunário
is
an
account
of
the
trips
of
Beno,
a
loner
who
measures
his
steps
on
the
road
by
Velvet
Underground
songs,
as
he
accounts
for
the
same
entrapments
that
Cal
has
suffered
due
to
a
so-‐called
deviant
sexual
conduct,
where
relief
can
only
be
provided
by
the
experimentation
of
the
body
as
it
is.
The
country,
nation
or
whatever
other
institutionalized
construction
can
only
then
be
perceived
as
castrating,
and
its
definition
upon
the
map
can
only
be
perceived
as
imaginary,
for
those
who
inhabit
it
no
longer
identify
themselves
with
it;
the
boundaries
between
space
and
body
become
fluid
and
liquid,
the
latter
being
the
place
for
the
performance
of
a
thought
and
discourse
free
from
categorization:
The
body,
that
somewhat
habitable
country,
in
which
nothing
reminded
him
of
that
other
country
geographically
defined
upon
the
maps,
which
everybody
insisted
in
telling
them
that
it
was
his
country.
The
body
always
evoked
another
luminous
place,
distant,
where
he
could
act
and
breathe,
think
and
move
freely.
(Al
Berto.
Lunário.
Assírio
&
Alvim:
Lisboa,
1988.
p.
18)
9
References
Berto,
Al.
Lunário.
(1999).
Lisboa:
Assírio
&
Alvim,
2012.
Chambers,
Iain.
Migrancy,
Culture,
Identity.
London:
Routledge,
1994.
Eugenides,
Jeffrey.
Middlesex.
London,
Bloomsbury,
2002.
Foucault,
Michel:
“Des
Espaces
Autres”
[Conférence
au
Cercle
d'Etudes
Architecturales,
14
de
Março
de
1967],
in
Architecture,
Mouvement,
Continuité,
n°5,
Octobre
1984,
pp.
46-‐49.
-‐-‐-‐.
History
of
Sexuality,
Vol.
1:
An
Introduction.
1976.
Trans.
Robert
Hurley.
London:
Penguin
Books,
1987.
Galgut,
Damon.
In
a
Strange
Room.
New
York:
Europa
Editions,
2010.
Harbison,
Robert.
Eccentric
Spaces.
New
York,
Knopf,
1977.
Hughes,
Holly
and
Román,
David,
Eds.
O
Solo
Homo:
the
New
Queer
Performance.
New
York:
Grove
Press,
1998.
Peña,
Guillermo
Gomez.
Border
Hysteria
and
the
War
against
Difference.
TDR/The
Drama
Review,
Spring
2008,
Vol.
52,
No.
1
,
Pages
196-‐203.
-‐-‐-‐.
The
New
World
Border:
Prophecies,
Poems,
and
Loqueras
for
the
End
of
the
Century.
San
Francisco:
City
Lights,
1996.
Tea,
Michelle.
Valencia.
New
York:
Seal
Press,
2000.
10