foo on agustin. the best part of her book is at the end!
By shag carpet bomb • Mar 9th, 2009 • Category: Laura Agustin, Sex at the Marginsdayum. I’m on the last chapter of agustin’s book where it gets really really good. she’s moving between thick description, anthropology-style, and analysis, covering things like the imposition of solidarity on sex workers on the part of progressive women who hand out condoms. they aren’t the moralizing sisters who are trying to rescue. no. they the “good ones” who we often think of as respecting sex workers, and working for them and for their rights and dignity.
nonetheless, in this section, which is an addendum to the main book, really, agustin’s writing gets so much better than it is in the rest of the book. the problem is, the addendum is where she is writing about rescuers and helpers, but they weren’t the focus of the book — even though it *feels* like this is the heart of the story that agustin really wants to tell.
anyway, more anon!
I hope.
it *is* going to be a killer for at least the next three months, I learned today. The heat is on, our jobs our on the line (so they say) and they are ramping up the expectation that we all work early and stay late. *sigh*
shag carpet bomb is
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Hello! Thank you for paying serious attention to my book, warts and all. The book began life as a doctoral thesis in the UK, which required terribly dense style and endless restatings of the same points. I cut at least a quarter of the text out for Zed Books, working quickly and concentrating most on getting the style clearer and less repetitive. The concluding chapter I wrote separately, in my own voice. I hope you’ll look at my blog where I always use that voice, except when re-issuing academic work!
Best, Laura
Border Thinking on Migration and Trafficking: http://www.nodo50.org/Laura_Agustin
I’m glad you stopped by. I was going to write and ask if you’d been constrained by the demands of a dissertation. :)
It is not that your writing isn’t in your voice elsewhere. I’ve been reading your work for awhile, and first learned of you through my friend, Doug Henwood. I listened to the radio interview and what strikes me about your writing is that it is very much like your speaking voice. What I was noticing in the last part of your book is that this was the story you most wanted to tell — the one where you weave back and forth between thick description of the fieldwork, your own in the field self reflection, criticisms, reactions, analyzing, and theorizing, to theory to analytical self reflection. It is very good, and draws the reader in. And I think, most of all, while what you spend much of your time on throughout the book is helping us get a clearer picture of the lives of migrant sex workers (as well as people who purchase sex), the heart of the story that you most want to tell, where your voice really shines through, is when you’re writing about various types of people associated with the rescue industry, helpers, and so forth.
at any rate, sorry I could not finish reviewing the whole book as I’d intended. I had to return it to interlibrary loan before I could finish. I’ve placed an order for it, though, so I can review the rest without worrying about due dates.