Denise Brennan- unit 3.docx

Denise Brennan, • “What’s Love Got To Do With It?” • American anthropologist • Sex globalism • Feminity and masculinity • Issues of sport • How gender performs • Not only in terms of our body but also what we say • Stories that we tell Ethnography  Written description and analysis of an anthropologist’s long term fieldwork and interactions with a particular group of people  End product of our research  Participant observation (long term engagement with people), unstructured or semi-structured interviews, and other qualitative methods  A goal of most contemporary ethnographies – emic perspective (from a perspective of people that you are studying, “insiders perspective”)  Takes on a non-judgmental approach  Your goal is to understand why they engage in sexscapes Ethnographies:  Are about exploring people’s perceptions and experiences of particular events and life experiences  Not about finding “the truth”  Contradictions  In other words, there are a lot of different responses to some of her questions to why they choose sex work and why its important for them Contemporary ethnographies are also:  Reflexive – when an anthropologist is aware of his or her positionality and how it reflects the process and outcome of research  Brennan as white, female, and heterosexual. How does this influence her research? People may be hesitant to answer her question if they are the opposite sex; white skin is associated with power and it may effect the answer  Were not going to have the same experience of same field work  For example, each individual will have different relationship with each anthropologist. Therefore, gender plays a role Brennan’s fieldwork:  1993-2003 in Sosua, Dominican Republic  Facilitated through affiliation with NGO, CEPROSH  50 formal, taped interviews with sex workers as well as informal interviews and participant observation  Sex workers, clients, hotel and nightclub owners, and others who benefit from sex trade  Tourism started taking off in late 1970’s and was fairly late to become a tourist destination  Top destination for Europeans and North American’s  Part of the problems with all-inclusive resorts is owned by large national companies and is not locally owned. Because your food and drinks are included they don’t encourage spending money Key Themes: 1) Social imaginary – Arjun Appadurai; how it connects with globalization 2) Globalization Definition of Globalization Anthony Giddens: …The intensification of worldwide social relations which link distant localities in such a way that local happenings are shaped by events occurring many miles away and vice versa (Giddens 1990: 64). • Interconnected, political interconnected • Were just interconnected as result of technology like the internet Agents of globalization:  Mass media and especially the internet  Travel and tourism  Expansion of different types in media: popularization of radio 1920’s, 1950’s the advent of television and gradually satellites, and late 1990’s internet became popularized  Technology allowed to us have different types of relationship  Example: Facebook and twitter; how do we interact with others; for example: pictures that are posted on Facebook are selective. This is done unconsciously and ables us to imagine a world where we may not have access to.  1950’s the expansion of commercial airline  Cheaper and easier to travel around the world now than it was in the past  Tourism changes local communities in both negative and positive  New groups of people forming different types of relationship that in the past were not created Tourist industry  Creates new opportunities for social interactions, and for sex workers to develop a sense of AGENCY (freedom and ability to make choices to change your life) and empowerment  Example: internet  In case of Sosua, Brendan argues that these relationships will better them in economical situation. So the tourist themselves become vehicles that they use to better there situation  Social imaginary- Arjun Appadurai argues that we all have imagination and that we all dream but argues that this process of dreaming have changed due to globalization  Why has it changed? It is because intimate engagement where other wise they may not have in reality they may dream of this social relationship in the context of Dominican public. So sex tourist themselves they dream of such situations. Appadurai would argue that we imagine how our world would have new possibilities  These new possibilities that are imagined by us are not the same dreams that our grandparents had Appadurai argues that new social imaginaries due to global flows involving:  Mass Media  International flow of finance and technology  Changes as a result of globalization force us to re- think our identities or develop new forms of identity.  In particular she argues that since about the 1980’s the Sosua has become a sexscape P. 15: “Sexscapes” • Calls it a new global sexual landscape • Sex is predominant • Racialized high-archy • Increasingly predefining through out the world • Has become a big business Sexscapes are linked to globalized economies and can involve: 1) International travel from developed to developing world; 2) Consumption of paid sex 3) Inequality Sex worker versus prostitute:  What is the difference? Why does she use the term “sex worker” in this context?  Sex worker: individuals who are in sex trade and who are not using pimps or any intermediate sources. They have a lot of control over there working conditions like the hours that they work, the days they want to work, they have to control over who they want to sleep with and what clients they want to take on, they have control over the price that will be paid.  Prostitutes: tend to use intermediate source “pimp” and is responsible for selecting clients and is generally collects the money. Generally someone who is controlled by a pimp they don’t have there free agency  The author is very clear that we cannot make huge generalization about this situation and cannot say that they are always benefiting  By interviewing 50 different women she hoped to draw attention to the diversity of women and how they often have contradict experiences in sex trade  Argues that for some women participation in sex is survival strategy so its something they do to make money  The reason for them to participate in activity is there are limited jobs and opportunities  Working as sex workers becomes a economical survival strategy  A lot of women dream that they can better their social position by marrying a foreign men Why do men seek sex workers in Sosua?  They construct their own imagined worlds – p. 29 “feeling rich” and “privileges, which were formerly restricted by class, race, and gender, are now available to everybody.