“Y'all trying to make a mockery out of me.” The confined sexualities of girls in a US juvenile detention facility

This paper examines how girls confined in a juvenile detention facility contend with messages from adult staff about their gender, sexual, and racial identities and practices. I show that girls are perpetually on the cusp of being punished for sexual misconduct for merely being sexually expressive, although actual punishment is arbitrary and inconsistently applied by staff. More importantly, girls' stories about their sexualities illuminate the force of punitive confinement sculpted by intergenerational relations that mask carceral logics under a façade of adult care. Constant surveillance and behavioral evaluations deem all sexuality to be available for inspection and introspection. I explore how girls come to understand their capacities for sexual expression within these limits of tight spatial control, persistent behavioral scrutiny, and a pervasive adult language of youth pathology. Racism and heterosexism centrally situate intergenerational relations of control and care in the facility, disturbingly burdening African-American and queer girls with the added pain of coming to terms with the impossibility of achieving the conformity that they are taught should be within their grasp with proper gender-sexual behaviors. Thus, rehabilitation is perpetually beyond girls' reach, since in spaces of juvenile detention personal and behavioral reform is an unending process.     

Migration for love? Love and intimacy in marriage migration processes

According to Australian regulations, the right to marriage migration applies only to genuine relationships. Marriage migration couples must demonstrate to state agents the authenticity of their romantic attachments in order to achieve a positive outcome in their applications. This article examines how love and intimacy in the context of Australian immigration regulations are interpreted by Thai women who originate from a non-Western culture. Drawing on interviews and ethnographic work with 15 Thai women marriage migrants, this article illustrates the ways in which the practical actions of caring and sharing are mobilized as important strategies for expressing real love and intimacy in marriage migration processes. Thus, although these women narrate their migration experiences as based on love and intimacy, such narratives are not free from global economic and structural inequalities. Women's constructions of love and intimacy presented here can transform over time in response to new personal experiences, changing social contexts and fluctuating circumstances in the processes of marriage migration.