Transnational lifestyles as a new form of cosmopolitan social identification? Latin American women in German urban spaces

Abstract

Joining a religious sect, the sex industry or the art field can open transnational opportunities for women to participate actively in different social and cultural domains. This article is based on a qualitative study of migration, gender and identity among Latin American women in Berlin. Drawing from a transnational practices perspective, I refer to lifestyles that serve to develop cosmopolitan skills and competencies such women develop by relying on multiple identifications. These competencies facilitate their ability to find recognition as well as express a sense of belonging that extends beyond the ethnic categorizations deployed within hegemonic discourses. The women presented here identified themselves within lifestyles that helped them to develop cosmopolitan sociabilities as alternative representations of themselves. Looking at forms of cosmopolitan identification, this paper focuses on individual agency as these women contested, resisted or empowered themselves against racialized and ethnicized global hierarchies of power.

Keywords:

• Migration
• women
• lifestyles
• transnationalism
• cosmopolitanism
• Latin American

Acknowledgements

I would like to acknowledge the women who shared their life stories and made possible this article. I would like also to thank the anonymous reviewers, and specially Nina Glick Schiller for the great comments and inspiring reflections as well as Tsypylma Darieva for her remarks.

Notes

1. For further information about migratory patterns of Latin Americans to Germany, see Julia Paz de la Torre (1990) or Sandra Gruner-Domic (2002).

2. Pan-ethnicity involves processes of ascription, accommodation and identification that creates ‘othering’ moments in which diverse groups are perceived as homogeneous (Espiritu 1992)

3. Depending on the context, the women in this article referred to their nationality, as, for example, Colombian, when talking to me (I am Bolivian) to differentiate their background from mine. At other moments they prefer to talk of ‘us’ as Latinas.

4. Kosnick (2009) argues that only cities that provide a vibrant climate of talent, technology and tolerance will successfully attract the creative class. Creative class is here a synonym for affluent elites and innovative talent.

5. All names are pseudonyms

6. This is a Berlin state-sponsored project to promote the understanding of cultural diversity.

7. Translated by the author.

8. Tomlinson (2003) differentiates between three major types of interpretation. The first is Bourdieu's thesis that different classes exhibit different lifestyles based on their habits, which are associated with occupation and access to capital or their intention to display a distinction from or a relationship to other social groupings. In contrast, the second position argues that, because of the increasingly broad dissemination of common styles, tastes, commodities and services the contrast between social groups and their habits is diminishing. The third position suggests that mass consumption is disappearing, allowing for more diverse lifestyles and fewer ‘traditional’ groupings (cf. Hiebert 2002).

9. Sex work should be considered in its variety of services that satisfy ‘the fantasy of sensuous reciprocity’ and is replacing street ‘prostitution’ (Augustin 2007, pp. 60–1).

10. Ali Nobil Ahmad (2008) states that migration itself has become a commodity that can be consumed by those who can afford this status symbol based in market ideologies that cultivate demand for modern pleasures, hedonism and experiences imagined from afar. This mystification is sustained by growing control restrictions imposed by the first world.

11. The sex industry concept follows Laura Augustin's (2007) definition as a realm that includes not only prostitution but all kinds of financial activity related to providing and selling and transactions connected to sexually linked products, services and infrastructure. Denise Brennan's (2004) description of transnational sex tourism offers a broader frame for understanding sex transactions in a transnational arena.

12. Sannyasins are followers of guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, better known as the orange people from Oregon. The bhagwan originated as a worldwide life-awakening movement based on practices and methods that individuals can use to discover their own proper religious path. Rejecting established beliefs, dogma and ideology, the movement seeks to find an essential universal religiousness by being open to all religions or none.