The Gendered Proletariat
Sex Work, Workers’ Movement, and Agency
Price: 895.00
ISBN:
9780199477753
Publication date:
25/09/2017
Hardback
264 pages
Price: 895.00
ISBN:
9780199477753
Publication date:
25/09/2017
Hardback
264 pages
Swati Ghosh
Through a political–economic analysis of prostitution, this book examines whether sex work is generative of value, and renders problematic the dimension of ‘work’ in sex work.
Rights: World Rights
Swati Ghosh
Description
A sex worker, as we know her today, is defined by her work. She is socially useful reproductive labour: a gendered proletariat.
Through a political–economic analysis of prostitution, this book examines whether sex work is generative of value, and renders problematic the dimension of ‘work’ in sex work. It traces the history of sex work through the colonial and postcolonial period, and the transformation of the role of the state from a penal to a watch-care model of surveillance in the wake of the AIDS scourge.
With sex workers’ movement in Sonagachi, Kolkata, defining the context, the book deploys Marxian categories of use value and exchange value and the dual in concrete labour and abstract labour to explore the case. It presents a critical observation on agency that the sex workers’ movement claims to have obtained. Delving into the case, the book provides a close reading of sex workers’ manifesto to reveal the fault lines that make incorporation of the prostitute in worker–citizen complex always incomplete.
About the Editor
Swati Ghosh is associate professor of economics and director of Women’s Studies Centre at the Rabindra Bharati University, Kolkata. She has contributed to books on issues of gender, labour, and development. Her publications include articles in Social Text, Economic and Political Weekly, Hecate, Identity Culture and Politics.
Kindly download the flyer for more details.
Swati Ghosh
Table of contents
List of Abbreviations
Credits
Preface and Acknowledgements
Rethinking the Prostitute Question
Part I: Sex Work and Value
1. Economics and Sex Work
2. Sex Work as a Form of Service
3. Sex Work and Theory of Value
4. Feminist Engagements with Value
5. Sex Work as Affective Labour
Part II: From Prostitute to Sex Worker: An Incomplete Revolution
6. Genealogy of the Prostitute: Colony to Postcolony
7. State, Welfare, and Governmentality
8. The Shadow Lines of Citizenship
9. Why (In)complete Revolution
Part III: On the Question of Agency
10. A Manifesto and the (Im)possibilities of Agency
11. Transgressing (B)orders: Prostitute as Mother and Wife
The Prostitute: A Gendered Proletariat
References
Index
About the Author
Swati Ghosh
Description
A sex worker, as we know her today, is defined by her work. She is socially useful reproductive labour: a gendered proletariat.
Through a political–economic analysis of prostitution, this book examines whether sex work is generative of value, and renders problematic the dimension of ‘work’ in sex work. It traces the history of sex work through the colonial and postcolonial period, and the transformation of the role of the state from a penal to a watch-care model of surveillance in the wake of the AIDS scourge.
With sex workers’ movement in Sonagachi, Kolkata, defining the context, the book deploys Marxian categories of use value and exchange value and the dual in concrete labour and abstract labour to explore the case. It presents a critical observation on agency that the sex workers’ movement claims to have obtained. Delving into the case, the book provides a close reading of sex workers’ manifesto to reveal the fault lines that make incorporation of the prostitute in worker–citizen complex always incomplete.
About the Editor
Swati Ghosh is associate professor of economics and director of Women’s Studies Centre at the Rabindra Bharati University, Kolkata. She has contributed to books on issues of gender, labour, and development. Her publications include articles in Social Text, Economic and Political Weekly, Hecate, Identity Culture and Politics.
Kindly download the flyer for more details.
Table of contents
List of Abbreviations
Credits
Preface and Acknowledgements
Rethinking the Prostitute Question
Part I: Sex Work and Value
1. Economics and Sex Work
2. Sex Work as a Form of Service
3. Sex Work and Theory of Value
4. Feminist Engagements with Value
5. Sex Work as Affective Labour
Part II: From Prostitute to Sex Worker: An Incomplete Revolution
6. Genealogy of the Prostitute: Colony to Postcolony
7. State, Welfare, and Governmentality
8. The Shadow Lines of Citizenship
9. Why (In)complete Revolution
Part III: On the Question of Agency
10. A Manifesto and the (Im)possibilities of Agency
11. Transgressing (B)orders: Prostitute as Mother and Wife
The Prostitute: A Gendered Proletariat
References
Index
About the Author
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