Uncanny Babushka: Migration, aging and the search for a new sexual Self

Abstract

Geographical mobility may have a powerful influence on sexual change. The sexual dimension of migration has mostly been studied in reference to its role in shaping aspiration for mobility. It has been documented how the promise of an erotically desirable future plays often an important role in many migration subcultures. Mobility, moreover, has been recognized as one of the ways in which many types of sexual minorities have escaped repression or pursued greater autonomy. In this paper, we argue that the same phenomena may be observed in the migration of older people. For some mature persons, particularly women, migration provides an alternative to de-sexualization and stigmatization. In many of these cases, however, the subjective process of sexual change is triggered indirectly, and sometimes serendipitously, by the experience of geographical dislocation. In fact, the experience of re-sexualization may be utterly independent from any pre-emigration aspiration to change one’s sexual Self. The paper – on the basis of two longitudinal research projects on the women pioneers of the Eastern European migration to Italy – explores the role played in their settlement by the discovery that, in the new environment, their age did not disqualify them from romance. The different reactions to these opportunities have created a strong differentiation among migratory trajectories. For the women pioneers who have decided to explore it, this unexpected lovescape has made possible to draw some crucial social boundaries and to trigger the birth of a distinctive sexual field.