L’illustration de la continuité des rapports sociaux de sexe dans les sexualités transactionnelles des migrantes haïtiennes en Martinique

Abstract

Analyzing the life stories of three Haitian women who have migrated to Martinique (French West Indies) and used transactional sex, helps to understand the role of sexuality in the strategies of administrative and social normalization among women of the lowest economic status. Each narrative illustrates a type of transactional sex: prostitution in the strict sense, marriage as a continuation of the “plaçage” which existed in Haiti, and transactional sex with a provider partner. Complex female behaviors appear through sexuality: on the one hand, women try to bend the rules of the patriarchal model to their benefit, and on the other hand, they come up against a normative framework which defines what is allowable and what is forbidden for women. These women’s experiences with transactional sex show that migration does not challenge gender relations, but rather strengthens the domination over women, when considering the nexus between “race,” class, and gender, and the relationship between the North and the South, which form a matrix of domination.

Keywords

• migration
• gender relations
• transactional sex
• Haitians
• Martinique (French West Indies)
• French West Indies women