| In this dissertation I argue that the production of sexual subjectivities can only be understood as a constitutive process between discursive regulation and self-constitution. This project is based on seven months of fieldwork on Nevis, a small English-speaking island in the Eastern Caribbean. Engaging the work of Michel Foucault and Judith Butler, this project explores the discursive aspects of sexualities. Sexual pleasure, commodity erotics, and practices of sexual-economic exchange are important and recurring themes in this project which repeatedly demonstrate that sexuality can be simultaneously domains of power and powerlessness and domains of self-determination and cultural control.; The ethnographic focus of this research is on Nevisian girls and what it means to come-of-age in an increasingly globalized island society. In order to fully understand the intimate aspects of the coming-of-age process, namely the production of girls' sexualities, I map out the dynamic and changing Nevisian sexual culture. Using data collected from participant observation, focus groups, and in-depth interviews I begin by charting the multiple and often competing discourses that influence the production of Nevisian sexual subjectivities. These disparate but overlapping discourses emerge from varying sites including the domains of religion, public health and consumer culture. In order to analyze the ways in which Nevisian girls negotiate the effects of dominant discourses, I rely on in-depth interviews in which I collected data on sexual histories. In doing this I was able to theorize how girls reproduce and/or influence sexual norms, scripts and practices. The significance of this project lies within the detail of the rich narratives which demonstrate the interaction and effects of global/local processes on the production of Nevisian sexualities. Given the broad scope of this project, I am able to explore a variety of compelling issues that impact Nevisian sexualities, including the relationship between consumer culture and public health, the way media articulates with sexual pleasures and desires, and the complex issue of exchanging sex for access to consumer goods and resources. |
