TY - GEN
T1 - Destabilising Sex work and Intimacy?
T2 - Gender Performances of Female Thai Migrants Selling Sex in Denmark
AU - Spanger, Marlene
PY - 2010
Y1 - 2010
N2 - Destabilising Sex Work & Intimacy?Gender Performances of Female Thai Migrants Selling Sex in DenmarkThis PhD thesis is submitted as four articles and investigates how female Thai migrants selling sex construct femininities that ground a number of subject positions such as mother, wife, migrant and sex worker in relation to already existing subject positions constructed by the Danish state represented within the policy field of prostitution. The study draws on poststructuralist feminist theory and is based on interviews with female Thai migrants selling sex and social workers, participant observations and documentary text material.Falling in two parts, the first part lays down the framework of the four articlesconsisting of an introduction, theoretical framework, methods and findings. Moreover, the four articles answer the overall research question: ‘How do female Thai migrants selling sex in Denmark destabilise and reproduce sex work and intimacy, represented by the Danish policy field, through their way of doing gender in various ways?’ The second part consists of four articles.The first article analyses the transformations of the Danish policy field of prostitution focusing on the Action Plans to combat human trafficking. It analyses the constitution and transformations of the Danish policy field of prostitution from a historical perspective. The article demonstrates how the predominant articulation of human trafficking is grounded in the social policy discourse and the feminist discourse; two discourses that complement eachother. Together, such discourse formations produce gendered subject positions such as ‘female victims of human trafficking’ and the ‘Third World Female Sex Slave’ rescued by the ‘White First World Feminist’. Such subject positions and this problematisation of human trafficking legitimise the social rescue efforts that leave the premises of the rescue efforts unquestioned. Simultaneously, the feminist breakthrough has been a tool for parts of the women’s movement in the political struggle to enforce prohibition on buying sex in Denmark. The second article applies literature on global care chains, citizenship and transnational migration and analyses how the female Thai migrants construct transnational and local motherhood in relation to the social work within prostitution and the Danish policy on family reunification. The article demonstrates the complexity and ambiguity in performing motherhood as female migrant living permanently abroad. Such an everyday life calls for differentiated policy solutions concerning their citizenship rights on caregiving.The third article investigates how the subject positions of wife, sex worker andfemale migrant intersect in the female Thai migrant sex workers’ narratives on romantic love. This article benefits from literature on transnational marriage and the sex tourism industry. It demonstrates how the female Thai migrants ascribe meaning to romantic love in multiple ways which reflect a destabilisation of the categories of sex work and prostitution. The last article synthesises Butler’s gender theory and theory on spatial acts with the purpose of analysing how the female Thai migrants’ performances of gender depend on their spatial acts. The article demonstrates how they become intelligible gendered subjects as female sex workers, mothers and respectable heterosexual male Thai migrants depending on their spatial acts.The dissertation proposes that female Thai migrants selling sex in Denmarkdestabilise and reproduce the fixed categories of prostitution and intimacy in different ways. These categories are produced within the Danish prostitution policy field and come into existence through the migrants’ performances of motherhood and marriage which closely intersect with their sex sale.
AB - Destabilising Sex Work & Intimacy?Gender Performances of Female Thai Migrants Selling Sex in DenmarkThis PhD thesis is submitted as four articles and investigates how female Thai migrants selling sex construct femininities that ground a number of subject positions such as mother, wife, migrant and sex worker in relation to already existing subject positions constructed by the Danish state represented within the policy field of prostitution. The study draws on poststructuralist feminist theory and is based on interviews with female Thai migrants selling sex and social workers, participant observations and documentary text material.Falling in two parts, the first part lays down the framework of the four articlesconsisting of an introduction, theoretical framework, methods and findings. Moreover, the four articles answer the overall research question: ‘How do female Thai migrants selling sex in Denmark destabilise and reproduce sex work and intimacy, represented by the Danish policy field, through their way of doing gender in various ways?’ The second part consists of four articles.The first article analyses the transformations of the Danish policy field of prostitution focusing on the Action Plans to combat human trafficking. It analyses the constitution and transformations of the Danish policy field of prostitution from a historical perspective. The article demonstrates how the predominant articulation of human trafficking is grounded in the social policy discourse and the feminist discourse; two discourses that complement eachother. Together, such discourse formations produce gendered subject positions such as ‘female victims of human trafficking’ and the ‘Third World Female Sex Slave’ rescued by the ‘White First World Feminist’. Such subject positions and this problematisation of human trafficking legitimise the social rescue efforts that leave the premises of the rescue efforts unquestioned. Simultaneously, the feminist breakthrough has been a tool for parts of the women’s movement in the political struggle to enforce prohibition on buying sex in Denmark. The second article applies literature on global care chains, citizenship and transnational migration and analyses how the female Thai migrants construct transnational and local motherhood in relation to the social work within prostitution and the Danish policy on family reunification. The article demonstrates the complexity and ambiguity in performing motherhood as female migrant living permanently abroad. Such an everyday life calls for differentiated policy solutions concerning their citizenship rights on caregiving.The third article investigates how the subject positions of wife, sex worker andfemale migrant intersect in the female Thai migrant sex workers’ narratives on romantic love. This article benefits from literature on transnational marriage and the sex tourism industry. It demonstrates how the female Thai migrants ascribe meaning to romantic love in multiple ways which reflect a destabilisation of the categories of sex work and prostitution. The last article synthesises Butler’s gender theory and theory on spatial acts with the purpose of analysing how the female Thai migrants’ performances of gender depend on their spatial acts. The article demonstrates how they become intelligible gendered subjects as female sex workers, mothers and respectable heterosexual male Thai migrants depending on their spatial acts.The dissertation proposes that female Thai migrants selling sex in Denmarkdestabilise and reproduce the fixed categories of prostitution and intimacy in different ways. These categories are produced within the Danish prostitution policy field and come into existence through the migrants’ performances of motherhood and marriage which closely intersect with their sex sale.
M3 - PhD thesis
CY - Roskilde
ER -