To browse Academia. Skip to main content. Log In Sign Up. All Departments 84 Documents 9 Researchers. Save to Library. Jenny V Pearce. Using Charles Democracy in contexts affected by chronic violence, it is argued, should not be thought of exclusively in relation to the functioning of political institutions and access to rights.
It should also be considered in relation to its capacity to produce and sustain forms of political, economic and social interaction that do not reproduce violence.
Hofmann S. Hofmann, S. Segura and Patricia Zavella eds. Gender Violence at the U. Journal of Latin American Studies Vol. Bulletin of Latin American Research Vol. In this highly competitive sex work location, the readers learn how sex workers deploy a variety of strategies in order to be successful. In this essay I will discuss corporeal entrepreneurialism in the context of commercial sex and neoliberal agency at the United StatesβMexico border. I want to situate the sex trade in a larger neoliberal context of economic need, I want to situate the sex trade in a larger neoliberal context of economic need, mobility, and commercialization.
The essay addresses how bodily entrepreneurialism can function as a gateway to upward social mobility and how erotic capital can level existing social and economic inequalities and thus act as a catalyst to exit marginalized communities. I am drawing on Wacquant's work on corporeal entrepreneurs and also on the notion of bodily capital that he has developed therein.
Using bodily capital in the context of sex work, it makes sense to talk more specifically about erotic capital, which is the primary currency in the sex trade. Thus, I will integrate Isaiah Green's definition of erotic capital and elaborate how women make use of their bodies to enhance their erotic capital and explain what their strategies and perceptions are. Inspired by Alexander Edmonds' work on beauty and race in Brazil, I will elaborate how corporeal entrepreneurs strategically use their bodily and erotic capital to counteract their socioeconomic marginalization and challenge traditional hierarchies.
