Approach to the performance as a political strategy of resistance to occupational apartheid: the situation of transvestite people

Abstract

Introduction: Transvestite people face different situations of injustice sustained by a heteronormative system that violates their lives, bodies, and silences their identities. In this sense, Occupational Apartheid operates through the formation of a structure that limits their occupational possibilities, but, at the same time, transvestite people resist this exercise of power through different mechanisms such as performances. Objective: To explore and analyze the artistic and political expression of performance, developed by sexual dissidents, as a political strategy of resistance to Occupational Apartheid. Method: This exploratory study corresponds to a case study design, based on audiovisual documentary analysis. An audiovisual piece called “Yo me maquillo” [I put on makeup] performed by two Chilean sexual dissidents and activists was analyzed in the city of Valparaíso (Chile). For the analysis, open coding of significant elements and posterior axial coding was performed. Results: It is evident how the performance as a political strategy of resistance to the occupational apartheid experienced by transvestite people in their daily lives, through the denunciation, visibility, action, agitation, and defying the hegemonic matrices, allowing to account for inequalities and structural violence that crosses their lives. Conclusions: The contributions of the study for occupational therapy and occupation science are discussed. Performance is highlighted as a collective and political occupation that develops from the resistance and subversion to occupational apartheid experienced by transvestite people.