Condensation of Meaning and Parody: Social Categorization of Sex, Gender, and Sexuality
Author: Miranda, Marcelo Henrique G., mm.marcelohenrique@yahoo.com.br
Department: Programa de Pós-Graduação de Sociologia - PPGS
University: Universidade Federal de Pernambuco, Brazil
Supervisor: Rosane Alencar
Year of completion: 2013
Language of dissertation: Portuguese
Keywords:
Poststructuralism
, queer theory
, social categorization
, conversation analysis
Areas of Research:
Deviance and Social Control
, Education
, Body in the Social Sciences
Abstract
Inserted on the contemporary Social Theories context, with respect to the questions of sexuality and heteronormativity, the goal of this work is to understand the condensation process of the meaning giving by male homosexuals starting from a parodic context, around the categories of sex, gender and sexuality.Theoretically this thesis is framed on the Post-structuralists /Queer Theory perspective and sociological approach about social categorization based on the ethnomethodologyand thediscuss analysis. The methodology used was qualitative and exploratory. The used method was a focal group composed by male homosexuals. The technique used was videography. The transcription of the data was sequential and followed the interaction and organization time of the activity.The goals of the analysis were: (a) identify the way that the categorial pairs male/female; men/women; heterosexual/homosexual were categorized by the group members based on a parodic context and, (b) identify the way that the dichotomic categorical pairs – male/female (sex); men/women (gender); heterosexual/homosexual (sexuality) are reproduced or destabilized via parody. This analysis focus on: a) the way how the focal group members discuss about sex, gender and sexuality categories; b) the selection and treatment given to the personal categories during the discussion and; c) the discursive pathof the categories analyzed. We also used the analysis´ categories from the post-structuralists /Queer Theory approach about sexuality. In the first goal, we found as a result a continuous recategorization process having as main topic homosexualities and the parodic world, divided in four categories (a) the life as it is; (b) comedy tv shows; (c) “serpintoso”and (d) a woman in a man´s body or a man in a woman´s body. In the second goal, the analysis shows that from the set of categories reproduced by the focal grouprecategorized, two were reproduced end four were destabilized. These results confirm the hypothesis that the meaning condensation process with respect to the categories of the homosexual´s heteronormativity never is, simply, a copy of preestablished models by the hegemonic sex, gender and sexuality categories, since the existence of a contingencial dimension updates a constitutive instability of the social categories. Thus, the ambivalence – component of those parodies – allowed the meaning condensation, either in the reproduction or in the destabilizationof the dichotomic categories of sex, gender and sexuality. In a general perspective of the social theory, the present study contributes for the consideration of the contingency on the study of the social reality.
