not necessarily influence or affect all people in similar ways. I contend that it is therefore possible that by choice, some people on the border may align themselves with one culture only and not with the other, thus, have fixed cultural identities. Other people may adopt both cultures to form ambiguous borderland cultures. Second, the theory presents the borderland as the end of territorial space and authority. However, the border can also be a starting point of something and not only the end of the territorial space. In this regard, sexual and identities borders offered by the binary model are not an end but a beginning for imagining and conceptualizing sexualities and identities that go beyond the normative boundaries of the binary. Last, Gonzalez (2003:35) has critiqued borderland theory on three accounts: its tendency to romanticize the border; the political limits of multiculturalism and pluralism, projects promoted by borderland theory; and the ideological contradictions of theorizing cultural identity non-dialectically as a condition of perpetual liminality.
In summing up this section, the above discussion shows how the borderland is a space which allows for malleability of self and identities. It is a site that enables operating in between, within, as well as outside the cultures on either sides of the borders. In spite it having been located in a physical location, namely, urban Lusaka in contemporary Zambia, my study adopts the concept of borderland and applies it metaphorically in relation to the construction of study participants‘ identities and sexualities. The borderland gives room for both hybridized and dualistic identities subject to individual preference. One important feature of the borderland is that ambiguity is the very state of being and a sphere that gives rise to ambiguous identities. Therefore, establishing how study participants ―self-construct‖ their identities and sexualities and the role of culture in this process propelled me to use borderland gender and sexualities as an analytical lens to allow me to adequately analyse ambiguities presented by participants. In this section, I have discussed borderland theory and in the following section, I proceed to analyse borderland theory as appropriated in gender and sexualities.
heterosexuality and homosexuality binaries. In relation to sexual orientation and gender identities, Waitt contends that:
the uncertainties of GLQBTI borderlands indicate it might be possible to revisit the queer political agenda by acknowledging that sexual identities are actively and spatially produced through processes that simultaneously draw from and defy social borders (2002:773).
The spectrum of sexual and gender identities presented within LGBTQI communities indicates the varieties in gender and sexual identities beyond the heterosexual/homosexual binaries. The spectrum shows a non-fixed continuum of gender and sexual identities and it is within this continuum that my study participants fall. The participants drew from masculinities and femininities, through utilizing male and female initiation rites and gender categorized cultural practices, to ―self-construct‖ their identities and sexualities. Such ambiguities overtly show how identities are always under construction, and operate outside the normative. The concept of borderland gender and sexualities does not subscribe to ideals of being male or female; in their state of ambiguities, they lie in-between the two binaries, borrowing from the two ends and at the same time defying the ―totality or wholeness‖ of both ends and constantly ―self-constructing‖.
Additionally, Anzaldúa argues that borderlands are ―an unstable, unpredictable, precarious, always-in-transition space lacking clear boundaries‖ (2009b:243). In a similar manner as Anzaldúa, Butler states:
How do drag, butch, femme, transgender, transsexual persons enter into the political field? They make us not only question what is real, and what ―must‖ be, but they also show us how the norms that govern contemporary notions of reality can be questioned and how new modes of reality can become instituted. These practices of instituting new modes of reality take place in part through the scene of embodiment, where the body is not understood as a static and accomplished fact, but as an aging process, a mode of becoming that, in becoming otherwise, exceeds the norm, reworks the norm, and makes us see how realities to which we thought we were confined are not written in stone (2004:29).
The concept of borderland gender and sexualities remains difficult to define, categorize or even confine to normativity as gender and sexual borders are always shifting, boundaries remain blurred and are constantly reworked. The concept of borderland gender and sexualities highlights spaces where an individual in a male body can dress as a female, behave both as male and female, have sexual attraction for females but have sexual relationships with both males and females, thus projecting difficulties in strict categorization of gender and sexualities. In the article, ―Gender Outlaws Before the Law: The Courts of the Borderlands‖, Gross, using court trials of gender outlaws held in the United States, United Kingdom and Israel, concludes that the cases manifest
not only the unresolved tension between sexual and gender identities, but also the internal conflicts within the identities themselves, as well as the difficulty of maintaining boundaries amongst them (2009:165).
Of interest to my research findings were the tensions of gender and sexual identities as manifested in the concept of borderland gender and sexualities. Within the concept of borderlands of gender and sexualities, study participants self-define and self-affirm, sometimes by embracing genders and sexualities on either ends of the religio-culturally prescribed male and female borders. But they still find unique ways in which to perform their identities and sexualities. For example, different participants aligned themselves with different gender roles – those who self-identified as female assumed more feminine gender roles while those who self-identified as male assumed masculine gender roles. Self- verification was undertaken as part of ―self-construction‖ and against the dominant cultural grain where males are expected to take on male gender roles and females assume female gender roles.
In her article, ―Queering the Borderlands: The Challenges of Excavating the Invisible and Unheard‖, Perez (2003:123) brings to the fore the Mexico and USA border, observing how borderlands have been imprinted by people who move across the region. While Perez (2003) is arguing about the physical border, the same principle can be metaphorically applied to the concept of borderland gender and sexualities as exhibited by study participants. Study participants are living on the borderland of gender and sexualities overtly or covertly by deconstructing and reconstructing borders around gender and sexuality. At the same time, they are formulating and reformulating their own border cultures on what it means to be a gendered sexual being. However, discrimination of the practice of gay identities and
sexualities in Zambia and the dictates of Zambian culture also influences how participants
―self-construct‖ their identities and sexualities. Perez furthers her argument to probe gender borders by arguing for
a decolonial gaze that allows for different possibilities and interpretations of what exists in the gaps and silences but is often not seen or heard…decolonial queer interpretations that obligate us to see and hear beyond a heteronormative imaginary (Perez 2003:129).
She queers the borderland arguing that it is a space in which domination of queer by the heteronormative is challenged, a space where formulation of new and unique identities is allowed, making visible and audible non-normative imagining of the concept of borderland gender and sexualities.The concept of borderland gender and sexualities cannot be restricted to physical borders where cultures, gender and sexualities are constantly reformulated as it also captures the metaphorical borderland spaces within given communities in which gender and sexualities operate. It is for this reason that Callis (2014), using an ethnographic analysis, focuses on sexualities in the USA highlighting borders between heterosexuality and homosexuality. Callis examines the usefulness of applying borderland theory to non-gay/non- straight sexualities such as queer and bisexual. Borderland theory offers avenues for formulation and exhibition of ambiguous gender and sexualities. Callis adds it is useful in
―the ways that the sexual borderland touches on all sexualities, as individuals knowingly cross, inhabit, or bolster sexual identity borders‖ (2014:63). Whether the study participants cross the gender and sexual borders, the borderland still remains fertile ground for self- discovery, self-validation and resistance of normativity.
For heterosexual and homosexual-identified people living on either side of the border, the borderland serves multiple purposes. It can become a boundary not to be crossed, or a pathway to a new identity. Because the borderlands are emerging from within the current binary system of sexuality, they interface with individuals of all sexual identities (Callis 2014:64).
In relation to gender and sexual identities, the borderland is not easily permeable but still remains porous for incorporation and adoption of certain practices from both binaries to be incorporated into the new identities. At the same time, the borderland deals with spaces for forging new identities for those on the borders.
This section has shown that gender and sexualities on the borderlands are non-fixed, unstable, ambiguous and ―unpredictable‖ identities. These identities lie outside and sometimes in- between the socially constructed binaries. In a similar manner, study participants‘ identities and sexualities are constructed in sites that create spaces for subverting gender and sexual normativity, thus, enabling for their reformulation.
The borderland therefore presents sites of power, structure and surveillance, resistance and agency. I go on to show that study participants continue to forge their identities and sexualities within the borderland.