Introduction

The theme of identity can be seen as one of the most popular topics in the media and in the Human Sciences today. This interest may be due in part to an effort to understand the social, cultural, technological and political changes that are affecting the way we live our everyday lives, in most parts of the world. These changes have led us to question traditional views of, for example, gender, sexuality and family life, in view of a new panorama in which to live social life. The ever-increasing presence of women in the job market, women's feminist consciousness and human reproduction technology, to name just three of these changes, have altered our perception of how families are organized, of what sexuality means and, consequently, of how the genders are performed.

On the other hand, the centrality of the theme of identity also seems to be motivated by the way the structures of power within which we live have been affected, in most parts of the world, by the so-called liberation movements, which began in the middle of last century (although in different degrees in different parts of the world), as well as by the intense migration from the old colonies of the southern hemisphere to the old colonies or to the rich countries of the northern hemisphere, in the so-called post-colonial world.