Between a rock and a hard place: The power and powerlessness of transnational narratives among gay Martinican men

In Martinique, self-identified gay men often tell each other stories about gay communities in other societies. France and Martinique are central chara cters in these stories but their presence is largely negative: life in the former is criticized for its economic or racial hardships and life in the l atter is criticized for homophobia, hypocrisy, and smallness, creating a fr ustrating catch-22 for these men. However, in these narratives Quebec often emerges as an ideal destination of racial and sexual freedom. In this pape r, I argue that Quebec is signified as utopic in terms that are antithetica l and therefore profoundly connected to impressions of social life in Franc e and Martinique. At the same time, however, I maintain that these narrativ es also reveal common threads in the African-pan-American diasporic experie nce. Furthermore, these men's experiences of "gay" life in other countries demonstrate their awareness of a "global gay" identity, albeit one that is commercially and ideologically centered in Euro-American societies.