The Identification and Social Practices of Homosexuals and Transsexuals in Eastern Slovakian Roma Settlements

Abstract

This article focuses on the use of critical discourse analysis in ethnographic research on homosexual and transsexual identity in eastern Slovakian Roma settlements. Critical Discourse Analysis offers a methodological and analytical system for handling the identifi cation process of these actors. Using some premises of Norman Fairclough's critical discourse analysis, the author attempts to demonstrate how homosexual and transsexual individuals (labelled using native categories such as homosexaulis, gayos, buzerantos, kerado, or tato) are identifi ed, and how this process of identifi cation is linked to existing social practices. In the analysis the author focuses on analytical issues, including the problem of identifying buzerantos and the semiotic aspects of identifi cation methods that can be observed in the context of conjunctural events of social practice. Other issues the author deals with include how this identifi cation process relates to genre, style and discourse, how subjectivity is involved in discourse, and in what ways members' resources are changing the limits of discourse. The fi nal point analysed is the practice of homosexuality and transsexuality as an alternative discourse type, which challenges the strategies of stigmatisation and changes the classifi cation frames governing what is appropriate or inappropriate.