Nicola Mai
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780226584959
- eISBN:
- 9780226585147
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226585147.001.0001
- Subject:
- Sociology, Gender and Sexuality
The book draws on unique and original research on the experiences of women, men, transgender people, minors and third party agents working in the sex industry in a variety of settings and jobs in the ...
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The book draws on unique and original research on the experiences of women, men, transgender people, minors and third party agents working in the sex industry in a variety of settings and jobs in the European Union, the Balkans and North Africa. Mobile Orientations addresses a critical issue within the transformation of global societies: the relation between the increase in migration flows, the expansion of the sex industry and the emergence of new forms of agency and exploitation. Moral panics about migrant ‘sex slaves’ being exploited in the global sex industry obfuscate the reality that only a minority is actually trafficked. The original research evidence analysed in Mobile Orientations counters the scenario of hegemonic exploitation presented by such moral panics. It shows that by migrating and working in the global sex industry, young women and men find opportunities to counter the increased precariousness and exploitability they meet in neoliberal times. The book’s autoethnographic writing style expresses the main theoretical contribution Mobile Orientations aims to make: to provide a nuanced and emic analysis of the complex understandings of agency and exploitation of migrants working in the global sex industry. The discussion of the methodological and expressive opportunities (and challenges) offered by ethnography and participatory filmmaking is integral part of the argument made by Mobile Orientations, which ultimately challenges the criteria of scientific and documentary authenticity and the forms of social exclusion engendered by the convergence between sexual humanitarianism and neoliberalism.Less
The book draws on unique and original research on the experiences of women, men, transgender people, minors and third party agents working in the sex industry in a variety of settings and jobs in the European Union, the Balkans and North Africa. Mobile Orientations addresses a critical issue within the transformation of global societies: the relation between the increase in migration flows, the expansion of the sex industry and the emergence of new forms of agency and exploitation. Moral panics about migrant ‘sex slaves’ being exploited in the global sex industry obfuscate the reality that only a minority is actually trafficked. The original research evidence analysed in Mobile Orientations counters the scenario of hegemonic exploitation presented by such moral panics. It shows that by migrating and working in the global sex industry, young women and men find opportunities to counter the increased precariousness and exploitability they meet in neoliberal times. The book’s autoethnographic writing style expresses the main theoretical contribution Mobile Orientations aims to make: to provide a nuanced and emic analysis of the complex understandings of agency and exploitation of migrants working in the global sex industry. The discussion of the methodological and expressive opportunities (and challenges) offered by ethnography and participatory filmmaking is integral part of the argument made by Mobile Orientations, which ultimately challenges the criteria of scientific and documentary authenticity and the forms of social exclusion engendered by the convergence between sexual humanitarianism and neoliberalism.
Gary Alan Fine
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780226560182
- eISBN:
- 9780226560359
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226560359.001.0001
- Subject:
- Sociology, Culture
Based on two years of intensive observation at three university-based graduate MFA arts programs, Talking Art provides a detailed ethnography of how young artists are trained in the contemporary art ...
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Based on two years of intensive observation at three university-based graduate MFA arts programs, Talking Art provides a detailed ethnography of how young artists are trained in the contemporary art world and how creativity has found a place in the modern American university. In contrast to the assumption that the key feature of graduate level art education is the teaching of techniques of art, students must develop a coherent artistic self and justify their intentions. Technique is rarely taught in classes, as it is assumed that young artists have enrolled with the skills necessary or that they will learn skills individually from mentors. Artists must read theory, learn to talk about their creations, and describe them in artist statements. These pose challenges for those young artists who expect to be makers, rather than intellectuals. Central to graduate art education is the critique: a public ceremony held several times a year in which students present their recent artwork to their community. Students describe their intentions and the rest of the session (from 30 minutes to an hour) is consumed by faculty evaluating this work. These public trials can be affirming or brutally critical. Students present their creations and their selves in ways that demonstrate that art truly matters.To be an artist is not simply to be a maker, but to be a reader, a talker, and a writer. As art education has been embraced by the university, it has increasingly become a professionalized discipline, rather than craft or embodied skill.Less
Based on two years of intensive observation at three university-based graduate MFA arts programs, Talking Art provides a detailed ethnography of how young artists are trained in the contemporary art world and how creativity has found a place in the modern American university. In contrast to the assumption that the key feature of graduate level art education is the teaching of techniques of art, students must develop a coherent artistic self and justify their intentions. Technique is rarely taught in classes, as it is assumed that young artists have enrolled with the skills necessary or that they will learn skills individually from mentors. Artists must read theory, learn to talk about their creations, and describe them in artist statements. These pose challenges for those young artists who expect to be makers, rather than intellectuals. Central to graduate art education is the critique: a public ceremony held several times a year in which students present their recent artwork to their community. Students describe their intentions and the rest of the session (from 30 minutes to an hour) is consumed by faculty evaluating this work. These public trials can be affirming or brutally critical. Students present their creations and their selves in ways that demonstrate that art truly matters.To be an artist is not simply to be a maker, but to be a reader, a talker, and a writer. As art education has been embraced by the university, it has increasingly become a professionalized discipline, rather than craft or embodied skill.
Becoming Mead
Not Tonight
The Good Project
Not Under My Roof
Saving Babies?
Authors of the Storm
Bargaining for Brooklyn
The Black Child-Savers
The Catholic Social Imagination
