Forms of A-Dress: Performances of the Foreign and S-Other-n Flows of Transnational Identity

Abstract

Against the backdrop of regional integration in South America, most notably in the form of the trading bloc Mercosur, this article explores the increasingly unavoidable phenomenon of fluid transnational identity in the context of other ‘trans’ terminologies: those of translation, both literal and cultural, and of transgender performance. As these fluid conceptions of language and gender begin to transform the borders of the nation-state to create regional and even transoceanic spaces for identity construction and cultural representation, what are the chances for enhanced South-South transcultural contact, especially in the wake of the all-too-common legacies of military dictatorship, political oppression and state terrorism? After all, transgender performance can be seen to employ many of the same techniques as translation, as well as nuanced forms of cultural critique and social transformation. Through a reading of a literary corpus of transgender protagonists, particularly those taken from the works of the Brazilian author Wilson Bueno, a model for post-national identity emerges, one that may well hold special promise for renegotiating the role of hybrid, multilingual and transcultural conceptions of self and other into the twenty-first century.