A few years ago, Lynn Sharon Chancer published an article which began by asking the reader to imagine the hypothetical existence of a sociologist involved in participant observer field work on prostitution in Chicago. The theoretical grounding of this article rests upon the readers' and the audience's shared perception about impossibility, or at least, the extreme ambivalence of reception, attending such a project within the U.S. academic setting. As Chancer notes, the responses she received to her suggested scenario lead her to conclude that "something about sex work is especially threatening, putting the researcher socially/sociologically at risk above and beyond the dangers attaching to the researched activity itself' ' (Chancer 1993, 167). This perception of a risk that is both personal (participant observation with sex workers is frequently dangerous because of the social spaces in which these women work) and professional (Chancer's comment that colleagues, when approached about this hypothetical project, all asked her in confidence if she had once been a prostitute), leads to a paradoxical positioning on the part of the researcher which undermines her work on at least two levels. The highly charged social connotations of this kind of study tend to identify the researcher as a member of that stigmatized community, to her professional detriment. Of even greater concern is the degree to which the work itself is compromised. More intensely, perhaps, than in other participant observer situations, the academic researcher has an important stake in maintaining a distance between herself and the women who are the objects of her study, to the degree that "the benefits of 2 participant observation are seldom brought to bear" (Chancer 1993, 153). This is true of both the researcher, who needs to separate herself from the women, and of the women themselves, whose difficult lives have taught them distrust of strangers who may only want to use them. 2Chancer's observations serve as important cautionary reminders in the study that follows, a collaborative work between a public health researcher, a social activist, and a literary critic on prostitutes in Tijuana, Mexico. Experience in Mexico shows that the first reaction of people working in prostitution when approached by researchers is to ask, "Why are you interested in us? Do you have AIDS?" If they are not satisfied with the answer to these questions, they will not participate in the interviews and will influence companions not to participate. Published research in Mexico, as elsewhere, frequently marks the difficulty of securing useful material: commercial sex workers are "reluctant to talk about their trade--especially to outsiders identified with public institutions" (Zalduondo 1991, 167), and researchers often have to adjudicate on the accuracy of the information gathered; as one research article puts it delicately when referring to the veracity of a particular statement, "doubt exists" (Uribe-Salas 1996, 124).This article derives from ongoing work with both male a...
For several years now, at least since the 2000 census, the United States has in one way or another told itself that it needs to come to terms with what it means to live in a country of over forty million Latinos/as. Latina actors grace the covers of People magazine, Latin beats percolate through the earbuds of iPods, and McDonald's serves up breakfast burritos alongside its McMuffins. In the academic world, the increasing consciousness of the Latino/a presence in the United States means that it is now unthinkable for any major university not to have a program of studies focusing on the histories and cultures of this ill-defined population; it means border theory is increasingly present on our syllabi; and it means that we all nod our heads wisely when the name “Gloria Anzaldúa” is mentioned. For years before her untimely death, Anzaldúa complained bitterly about being “repeatedly tokeni[zed]” (“Haciendo Caras” xvi), as one of the same half dozen women continually called on as a resource for academic collaboration. Being a token meant that she saw clearly how she was both overhyped and treated less than seriously; worse, she felt drained of the energy that would allow her to continue her literary and political work.
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