“We are not selling our bodies; we are just selling sex”: Exploring the alienated experience of sex workers across space and place.
| dc.contributor.advisor | Fakier, Khayaat | en_ZA |
| dc.contributor.author | Fife, Nabeelah | en_ZA |
| dc.contributor.other | Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of Sociology & Social Anthropology. | en_ZA |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2025-02-04T08:37:02Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2025-02-04T08:37:02Z | |
| dc.date.issued | 2024-12 | |
| dc.description.abstract | This study explores the perceptions of five sex workers on the working conditions and nature of the sex work industry in Cape Town and broader South Africa. While the practice of selling sex commonly evokes negative stereotypes about the sex work population, this study considers how entry into sex work for many is a choice. Thus, sex work emerges as a liberatory practice, particularly for those who are fleeing from the conditions of township living and others from precarious jobs, prejudice, danger, or non-supportive families. In making this analysis, this study draws on Lefebvre and Massey’s theories of space and place; Bourdieu, Standing’s, and Butler’s theory of precarity; Marx’s theory of alienation; Gimlin’s theory of bodywork; as well as Hochschild’s theory emotional labour and emotional rules. In taking seriously the claim that sex work makes for an illegitimate means of work, this study explores the local meaning of sex work from the perspectives of sex workers themselves and the ways in which sex work as a form of work is affirmed as functional and a survivalist strategy. The study concludes that the exploitative and violent conditions experienced at the hands of clients, police, brothel managers, and other sex workers are due to the legal status of sex work in South Africa. | en_ZA |
| dc.description.version | Masters | en_ZA |
| dc.format.extent | 92 pages | |
| dc.identifier.uri | https://scholar.sun.ac.za/handle/10019.1/131658 | |
| dc.language.iso | en | en_ZA |
| dc.publisher | Stellenbosch University | en_ZA |
| dc.rights.holder | Stellenbosch University | en_ZA |
| dc.title | “We are not selling our bodies; we are just selling sex”: Exploring the alienated experience of sex workers across space and place. | en_ZA |
| dc.type | Thesis | en_ZA |