Desire across borders: markets, migration, and marital HIV risk in rural Mexico

Abstract

This paper presents five concepts that articulate specific processes through which political and economic factors shape sexuality, drawing on ethnographic research on changing notions of marriage, love, and sexuality conducted in migrant-exporting rural Mexico and with Mexican migrants in Atlanta and New York. The first section describes how changing beliefs about love, marriage, sexual intimacy and fidelity constitute a cultural terrain which facilitates ‘vaginal marital barebacking’ in rural Mexico. The paper details sexual opportunity structures; sexual geographies; the multi-sectoral production of risk (including the ways in which housing, transportation, and other policy sectors together create the ‘recreation-deserts’ in which many migrants live); sexual projects, and externalities as conceptual tools that articulate how political and economic factors from the meso- to the macro-level shape sexuality.

A partir de un estudio etnográfico sobre los cambios en las nociones de matrimonio, amor y sexualidad llevado a cabo en una zona rural de México exportadora de emigrantes y con inmigrantes mexicanos en Atlanta y Nueva York, en este trabajo se presentan cinco conceptos que articulan los procesos específicos a través de los cuales los factores políticos y económicos dan forma a la sexualidad. En la primera sección se describe de qué modo los cambios en las creencias sobre amor, matrimonio, intimidad sexual y fidelidad constituyen un terreno cultural que facilita la penetración vaginal sin preservativo en las zonas rurales de México. En el artículo se detallan las estructuras de oportunidades sexuales; las geografías sexuales; la producción de riesgo en muchos sectores (incluyendo las formas en que la vivienda, el transporte y otros sectores políticos crean todos juntos los “desiertos del ocio” donde viven muchos inmigrantes); los proyectos sexuales y los efectos externos como herramientas conceptuales que articulan el modo en que los factores políticos y económicos, de un nivel medio a macro, determinan la sexualidad.

En s'inspirant d'une recherche ethnographique sur les notions changeantes du mariage, de l'amour et de la sexualité, cet article présente cinq concepts qui énoncent des processus spécifiques selon lesquels des facteurs politiques et économiques déterminent la sexualité. La recherche a été conduite dans une région rurale du Mexique, ainsi que parmi des migrants mexicains vivant à Atlanta et à New York. La première partie de l'article explique comment les croyances sur l'amour, le mariage, l'intimité sexuelle et la fidélité constituent un terrain culturel facilitant le « bareback vaginal conjugal » dans le Mexique rural. L'article décrit en détail les structures d'opportunité sexuelle; les géographies sexuelles; la production multisectorielle du risque (comprenant la manière selon laquelle le logement, le transport et les autres champs politiques créent ensemble les « déserts de récréation » où vivent les migrants); les projets sexuels et les externalités en tant qu'outils conceptuels qui expliquent comment les facteurs politiques et économiques aux niveaux méso et macro déterminent la sexualité.

Keywords::

• migrants
• Mexico
• heterosexuality
• HIV/AIDS
• masculinity

Acknowledgements

Prior versions of this article were presented as a plenary at the 2013 conference of the International Association for the Study of Sexuality, Culture, and Society, where Andrea Cornwall and Mark Padilla provided valuable critiques as discussants; at the Center on Health, Risk and Society at American University, and in the Department of Sociomedical Sciences at Columbia's Mailman School of Public Health. Along the way, Megan Galeucia and Caroline Parker provided meticulous research assistance.

Notes

^1. There is no question, of course, that women also engage in extramarital relations: one need only note the number of healthy babies who strikingly resemble full-term newborns and who are nonetheless referred to, with a wink and a nod, as sietemesinos (that is, babies born at seven months, since it was seven months since their mother's husband was last in town). Women's extramarital relations, however, must be understood within a somewhat different conceptual topography, and so rather than explore them superficially, I leave them entirely for another day.

Additional information

Funding

The author gratefully acknowledges a 2012 Fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, as well as support (R01 HD041724) from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.