The Anthropology of Sex Work

Catalog description

This course examines sex work as a form of labor in different sites around the world. More specifically it explores what compels people to become involved in the industry, who its participants are, who seeks sex workers and why. It also considers the factors that impact the differing ways sex work is practiced and how it affects families. Tourism and its implications for sex work is an important focus of the course as well. The class proceeds as a survey of literature that will introduce students to relevant theories regarding sex work and ethnographic information that will help understand debates on its regulation and legalization. The latter part of the course will focus on these debates and moral, health, and human rights concerns. The case studies examined in the course take place primarily in the Caribbean and Latin America. As such, the course will ask important questions regarding the intersections of race, class, and sexual orientation with sex work and consider how these intersecting dynamics shape the experiences and decision making processes of both sex workers and their clientele.