Citation

Rosen E, Venkatesh SA. J. Contemp. Ethnogr. 2008; 37(4): 417-441.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2008, SAGE Publishing)

DOI

10.1177/0891241607309879

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

In an apartment building on Chicago's Southside, fifty of the seventy-five residents are sex workers. Our study uses in-depth interviews and participant observation of Chicago's sex work economy to argue that sex work is one constituent part of an overall low-wage, off-the-books economy of resource exchange among individuals in a bounded geographic setting. To an outsider, the decision to be a sex worker seems irrational; in this article we argue that specific localized conditions invert this decision and render it entirely rational. For the men and women in our study, sex work acts as a short-term solution that "satisfices" the demands of persistent poverty and instability, and it provides a meaningful option in the quest for a job that provides autonomy and personal fulfillment.