性労働に従事する女性たちの民族誌的研究をめぐる覚書

概要

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This article reviews some recent ethnographic studies on women in sex work around the world in order to obtain the research framework for future ethnographies of female sex workers in Japan. The issue of whether those women are hapless "victims" or free "labours" has been a long controversy among scholars in various fields. However, the ethnographic findings prove that such a search for a single and universal definition is indeed unproductive. Instead, the researchers try to identify positive or subtle acts of "resistance" in the conducts of respective women. Those acts are then carefully situated in the individual contexts through their own stories narrated in the specific spaces, at the specific moments. In the last part of the article, critical re-reading of the ethnographic works is attempted to confirm the "thickness" of the descriptions in terms of politics, culture and subjectivity, hoping to enhance the effectiveness of the valuable concept, "resistance". With the concept of "resistance" and the improved methodology for its description, we can eventually embark on the ethnographic study on female sex workers in Japan as a meaningful project.
2008-03-31