Sexuality and migration are increasingly critical areas of scholarship for those who invest in the relationships among communication, sexuality and culture. Undocumented, queer Latinos represent a group of marginalized peoples who are spoken about but rarely spoken with. For queer migrant Latinos living in the United States, stereotypes and discursive misconceptions about their identities as deviant, diseased others are a constant force with which to negotiate. This study's central aim was to explore the relationships between globalization's modes of power and queer migrants' use of performance and communication in public, queer spaces. Employing performance-based, ethnographic methods I conducted participant observations and narrative interviews with a group of queer Latino migrants living in Phoenix, Arizona. Research was conducted in queer night clubs and public spaces territorialized by them.

Scholars of critical communication and performance studies have yet to fully address the material ways in which space constitutes a site and a medium for the enactment of social power. This study answers the calls of both Grossberg and Shome to move studies of culture to a spatial logic of power, by exploring the possibilities queer space holds for more complex theorizing of performances of identity, cultural practice, and tactical resistance among queer migrants. Among the findings, I argue that space can organize and distribute particular forms of affect, queer agency and mobility. This study unpacks the power of queer public space and adds to a proliferating area of study that centers the role of space in cultural practice. Coining the term 'periclub space,' I argue that queer clubs carry potential to spatialize other, connected spaces. Findings reveal that spaces intended to situate migrant identities in particular ways can be re-territorialized through queer tactics of resistance, most notably the use of ludic play.