Narratives of Agency: Sex Work in Indonesia’s Borderlands
Access status:
Open Access
Type
Book chapterAbstract
Lia’s and Ani’s narratives raise questions about how we can theorize the “constrained choice to become a sex worker, without moralisingly declaring all sex work to be exploitation or violence against women” (Schotten 2005: 230). The latter view is espoused by those writers who, ...
See moreLia’s and Ani’s narratives raise questions about how we can theorize the “constrained choice to become a sex worker, without moralisingly declaring all sex work to be exploitation or violence against women” (Schotten 2005: 230). The latter view is espoused by those writers who, writing from an abolitionist stance, argue that prostitution is the ultimate expression of male dominance and thus the cornerstone of all sexual exploitation (cf. Barry 1996). According to this argument, there is no place for sex workers to claim that their work is not harmful or alienating. Such a totalizing perspective provides little space for alternative accounts of the intersection between structure and agency and overlooks the ways in which women themselves understand and explain their life histories. The stories that Lia and Ani, two women who became labor migrants, then sex workers, and finally the wives of ex-clients, tell about their lives demonstrate these complexities and challenge commonsense understandings about women’s agency.
See less
See moreLia’s and Ani’s narratives raise questions about how we can theorize the “constrained choice to become a sex worker, without moralisingly declaring all sex work to be exploitation or violence against women” (Schotten 2005: 230). The latter view is espoused by those writers who, writing from an abolitionist stance, argue that prostitution is the ultimate expression of male dominance and thus the cornerstone of all sexual exploitation (cf. Barry 1996). According to this argument, there is no place for sex workers to claim that their work is not harmful or alienating. Such a totalizing perspective provides little space for alternative accounts of the intersection between structure and agency and overlooks the ways in which women themselves understand and explain their life histories. The stories that Lia and Ani, two women who became labor migrants, then sex workers, and finally the wives of ex-clients, tell about their lives demonstrate these complexities and challenge commonsense understandings about women’s agency.
See less
Date
2011-01-01Publisher
Indiana University PressLicence
This article was published Ford, M., Lyons, L. (2011). Narratives of Agency: Sex Work in Indonesia's Borderlands. In Kathleen M. Adams, Kathleen A. Gillogly (Eds.), Everyday Life in Southeast Asia, (pp. 295-303). Bloomington: Indiana University Press. No part of this article may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted, or distributed, in any form, by any means, electronic, mechanical, photographic, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Indiana University Press. For re-use, please contact the Copyright Clearance Center ([http://]www.copyright.com, 508-744-3350). For all other permissions, please visit http://iupress.indiana.edu.Citation
Ford, M., Lyons, L. (2011). Narratives of Agency: Sex Work in Indonesia's Borderlands. In Kathleen M. Adams, Kathleen A. Gillogly (Eds.), Everyday Life in Southeast Asia, (pp. 295-303). Bloomington: Indiana University PressShare