In post-modern “space wars” on urban battlefields, sex workers are often targeted as a major source of concern, serving a catalyst for social anxieties related to identity, gender, female and masculine sexuality. Sex workers' body are culturally represented through mixed attitudes of attraction and revulsion, which are discursively generative of political devices for their inclusion/exclusion and control. This contribution is based on the analysis of common sense phrases and metaphors employed by groups of citizens and local authorities in their discourses and protests against the presence of sex workers in a specific area of the city of Rome (Italy), the EUR district, where social conflicts led in 2014 to the development of a proposed “zoning”. This contribution will demonstrate how linguistic habits and phrases can be referred to a system of moral, social and political ideas on “purity” and “danger”, as described by anthropologist Mary Douglas in her seminal study. It will show, then, how such ideas perform actively in the social and spatial organisation of sex work in the city, with its inner lines circumscribing collective identities and its boundaries of exclusion.

Serughetti, G. (2015). Polluting Bodies: Everyday Language and the Otherisation of Sex Workers in Local Struggles Against Prostitution. In J. Simmons (a cura di), Human Trafficking and Prostitution: Global Prevalence, Gender Perspectives and Health Risks (pp. 1-17). Hauppauge NY : Nova Science Publishers.

Polluting Bodies: Everyday Language and the Otherisation of Sex Workers in Local Struggles Against Prostitution

SERUGHETTI, GIORGIA
2015

Abstract

In post-modern “space wars” on urban battlefields, sex workers are often targeted as a major source of concern, serving a catalyst for social anxieties related to identity, gender, female and masculine sexuality. Sex workers' body are culturally represented through mixed attitudes of attraction and revulsion, which are discursively generative of political devices for their inclusion/exclusion and control. This contribution is based on the analysis of common sense phrases and metaphors employed by groups of citizens and local authorities in their discourses and protests against the presence of sex workers in a specific area of the city of Rome (Italy), the EUR district, where social conflicts led in 2014 to the development of a proposed “zoning”. This contribution will demonstrate how linguistic habits and phrases can be referred to a system of moral, social and political ideas on “purity” and “danger”, as described by anthropologist Mary Douglas in her seminal study. It will show, then, how such ideas perform actively in the social and spatial organisation of sex work in the city, with its inner lines circumscribing collective identities and its boundaries of exclusion.
Capitolo o saggio
trafficking, prostitution, zoning, urban space, social conflicts, gender stereotypes, social exclusion, otherisation, borders
Italian
Human Trafficking and Prostitution: Global Prevalence, Gender Perspectives and Health Risks
Simmons, J
2015
978-1-63483-999-0
Nova Science Publishers
1
17
Serughetti, G. (2015). Polluting Bodies: Everyday Language and the Otherisation of Sex Workers in Local Struggles Against Prostitution. In J. Simmons (a cura di), Human Trafficking and Prostitution: Global Prevalence, Gender Perspectives and Health Risks (pp. 1-17). Hauppauge NY : Nova Science Publishers.
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/10281/104261
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