‘Black girlhood and emerging sexual identities: sexual citizenship and teenage girls of African descent in Athens’

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper discusses data from interviews with young girls (13-23) of African descent and is part of our larger research programme, entitled ‘AfroGreek Cultures in Athens’. In it we wish to offer an exploratory mapping of African women’s and girls’ lived experiences in Greece. Given that women of colour usually have to wrestle with derogatory assumptions and stereotypes about their character and identity, in order to preserve their true selves and secure recognition as citizens, we would like to investigate the everyday practices and experiences of African teenage girlhood in Greece. What can African teenage girls tell us about how they see themselves within Greek society and their own community? To what extent certain patriarchal and heteronormative ideologies and power relationships about sexuality, religion, family, self-regulation, popular culture, are (unwittingly) internalized, and passed on to the next generation of young African girls in Greece? For the purposes of this article, we focus on how our participants accounted for the constructions of femininity within the African community; technologies of sexiness; managing one’s sexual conduct; and parental control.