As Rainhas do Agreste Paraibano: etnografia das performances transformista, drag queen e show trans em Campina Grande-PB.

Abstract

This dissertation is the result of research linked to the Masters in Social Sciences, in the Graduate Program at UFCG. It was held from April 2019 to July 2021, with the order of understanding what it is and what it is like to be a drag queen artist, transformists artist and trans artist in Campina Grande-PB. To that, we investigate the identification mechanisms triggered by them; the continuities and discontinuities in the gender representations performed; the relationships of these artists with family, friends, sexual partners and with each other; understandings of work and recreation; and finally, mapping the spaces for LGBTQIA+ interaction and drag queen performances, transformist and trans shows. We use the qualitative research method and field research, combined with the interpretive ethnography method in urban contexts (GEERTZ, 1989; OLIVEIRA, 1996; MAGNANI, 2003, 2008) and offline and online netnography/cyberethnography (KOZINETS, 2014; LEITÃO & GOMES, 2018), relying on the use of What’s App and other social networks as mediating tools for the exchange of information and spaces for carrying out anthropological and sociological investigations (XAVIER, 2019). Ten artists were interviewed, including cisgender gay and bisexual men, trans women and transvestites who work as artists in the city, who identify themselves as drag queens and/or transformists and trans performers. Throughout the dissertation, the artists, their career time, places where they worked within the city of Campina Grande are presented, making it possible, through the life history of these artists and the study of their experiences, to map the places of activity in the city, as well as realize the constructions of the notions of masculine and feminine that are expressed in their speeches and actions about their performances and experiences; the nuances in their coming out of the closets, which are striking aspects in the lives of LGBTQIA+ people, and in the recognition of the characters performed. In this way, this work contributes to the studies of gender, performance, art and culture and in the various expressions in the field of sexuality.