Migrant Bodies: Imaginaries and Agencies of Women and Queer Youth in School

Abstract

The increase of Latin American and Caribbean migrant students in Chilean schools raises a developing interest in understanding the intersection between migration, sexuality and the body in educational settings. Previous studies suggest that the school communities often perceive migrant students as hypersexualised in terms of their behaviours and sex-affective relationships, which is linked to processes of racialisation and sexualisation of their bodies. This article explores the imaginaries and agencies related to body image among adolescent girls and queer migrants in an all-girls high school in Santiago, Chile. Based on in-depth interviews and focus groups with adolescents in their final year of high school, the results show that body image is an area of contradiction for the students. While confronted with dominant beauty standards, they strive for a healthy relationship with their bodies and self-love. These challenges are exacerbated for adolescent migrants due to the body images associated with their countries of origin. However, feminist beliefs act as a protective factor and the school, as a feminised institution, becomes a safe space for deconstructing body stereotypes.