Pole Position

Migrant British Women Producing 'Selves' through Lap Dancing Work

Dados Bibliográficos

ID3947273
AutoresEsther Bott (autor correspondente)
Ano2006
Volume83
Fascículo1
Páginas23-41
Data de publicação2006-08-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoFeminist Review (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0141-7789 • E-ISSN: 1466-4380
EditoraSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1057/palgrave.fr.9400279
OpenAlexW1971766984
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas24
Referências citadas21

This paper explores the motivations and experiences of British women working as lap dancers in the tourist resorts of southern Tenerife, with a particular focus on the subjective choices and processes undertaken by working-class women in the embodiment of positively evaluated identities. It uses Skeggs' theoretical framework of 'becoming respectable' (1997) alongside other debates on 'identity management' in order to begin mapping the ways in which migrant British lap dancers produce themselves, negotiate gender and class, and seek forms of respectability, reputability and honour through their work. Drawing on empirical data, it will discuss how strong disassociations with the Other are formed, and how and why important binaries, particularly distinctions between lap dancing and prostitution and lap dancing and other 'degraded' forms of work and lifestyle are drawn in the dancers' own stories of themselves. It will look at notions and processes of gaining 'respectability' through part of a wider migrant discourse, exploring how being a migrant lap dancer can serve as a vehicle for reproducing a 'respectable' and otherwise positively evaluated self on several levels

Aesthetics · Art · Class (philosophy) · Femininity · Honour · Identity (music) · Masculinity · Negotiation · Political science · Social science · Sociology · Tourism · Anthropology · Cultural Studies · Diaspora, migration, transnational identity · Gender Studies · Migration, Ethnicity, and Economy · Sex work and related issues