Constructing sexualities across transnational spaces : Ghanaian youth in the Netherlands

This paper discusses the relevance of transnationalism for understanding sexuality. It explores conceptual issues such as place, school and family and in constructing sexualities. The researcher draws her argument by making sense of the different discourses (including, cultural and legal) that surround sexuality at the national levels of Ghana and the Netherlands and how the differences in these two countries though, not always exclusive, often obstruct the sexual socialization of youth who live their lives transnationally. The study focused on the choices that migrant youth of Ghanaian descent living in the Netherlands make while constructing their sexual identities vis-ẚ-vis the compulsory lessons they receive on sexual diversity in high schools in the Netherlands, their exposure to LGBT programmes and socialization in the Netherlands. By employing an ethnographic approach to qualitative studies, the researcher gathered views of 16 young Ghanaians between the ages of 15 and 23 years and views of four Ghanaian parents living in the Hague and Amsterdam. The study found contestations and struggles in the sexual behaviour of young people with migrant background often emerging from their parents and other relations and ties they have in Ghana. From the narratives of the participants, it was concluded that the immediate environment of people in the early stages of their formation years has a high tendency of defining young people’s sexual identities. Likewise, religion, culture, family, connections between homeland and destination country and school are major influences that plant deep-rooted beliefs and values in young people which are used as guiding principles in constructing their sexual identities.