Becoming cosmopolitan women while negotiating structurally limited choices: The case of Korean migrant sex workers in Australia

Dalton, B; Jung, K

Becoming cosmopolitan women while negotiating structurally limited choices: The case of Korean migrant sex workers in Australia

Dalton, B

Jung, K

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Publication Type:: Journal Article
Citation:: Organization, 2019, 26 (3), pp. 355 - 370
Issue Date:: 2019-05-01

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Field	Value	Language
dc.contributor.author	Dalton, B https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9507-1447	en_US
dc.contributor.author	Jung, K https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9346-7712	en_US
dc.date.available	2018-11-08	en_US
dc.date.issued	2019-05-01	en_US
dc.identifier.citation	Organization, 2019, 26 (3), pp. 355 - 370	en_US
dc.identifier.issn	1350-5084	en_US
dc.identifier.uri	http://hdl.handle.net/10453/130210
dc.description.abstract	© The Author(s) 2018. International labor mobility holds the promise that one can become a cosmopolitan citizen of the world. But this interpretation of mobility rarely features in research and media focused on Asian women who travel and engage in sex work. In both arenas, the dominant narrative is that migrant sex workers are poor, the victims of sex trafficking, and pose a risk to public health. This narrative is laced with Orientalist overtones of the Asian sex worker as the alluringly exotic ‘other’, passive and particularly vulnerable, and in need of rescue. However, the interviews of 11 Korean women sex workers based in Sydney, Australia, challenge this narrative. These women engaged in a transnational quest to become cosmopolitan citizens of the world, albeit making logical choices from structurally limited options shaped by their multiple identities as women, sex workers, and Korean, and their relative precarious position in the Australian labor market. Their stories highlight how migration and work can be an agentic process of self-expression and self-actualization of identity. This identity has emerged against the backdrop of shifting meanings and practices of social reproduction in Korea, a country that has experienced a highly compressed transition from developing, to modern capitalist state. Theoretically, the article draws on post-colonial feminist theory to shed light into the conflicting views on migrant sex workers in existing research, by focusing on the women’s voices, which have been neglected or silenced.	en_US
dc.relation.ispartof	Organization	en_US
dc.relation.isbasedon	10.1177/1350508418812554	en_US
dc.subject.classification	Business & Management	en_US
dc.title	Becoming cosmopolitan women while negotiating structurally limited choices: The case of Korean migrant sex workers in Australia	en_US
dc.type	Journal Article
utslib.citation.volume	3	en_US
utslib.citation.volume	26	en_US
utslib.for	15 Commerce, Management, Tourism and Services	en_US
utslib.for	16 Studies in Human Society	en_US
utslib.for	22 Philosophy and Religious Studies	en_US
pubs.embargo.period	Not known	en_US
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney/e-Press
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney/Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney/Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences/Social and Political Sciences Program
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney/Faculty of Business
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney/Faculty of Business/Management Discipline
utslib.copyright.status	closed_access
pubs.issue	3	en_US
pubs.publication-status	Published	en_US
pubs.volume	26	en_US

Abstract:

© The Author(s) 2018. International labor mobility holds the promise that one can become a cosmopolitan citizen of the world. But this interpretation of mobility rarely features in research and media focused on Asian women who travel and engage in sex work. In both arenas, the dominant narrative is that migrant sex workers are poor, the victims of sex trafficking, and pose a risk to public health. This narrative is laced with Orientalist overtones of the Asian sex worker as the alluringly exotic ‘other’, passive and particularly vulnerable, and in need of rescue. However, the interviews of 11 Korean women sex workers based in Sydney, Australia, challenge this narrative. These women engaged in a transnational quest to become cosmopolitan citizens of the world, albeit making logical choices from structurally limited options shaped by their multiple identities as women, sex workers, and Korean, and their relative precarious position in the Australian labor market. Their stories highlight how migration and work can be an agentic process of self-expression and self-actualization of identity. This identity has emerged against the backdrop of shifting meanings and practices of social reproduction in Korea, a country that has experienced a highly compressed transition from developing, to modern capitalist state. Theoretically, the article draws on post-colonial feminist theory to shed light into the conflicting views on migrant sex workers in existing research, by focusing on the women’s voices, which have been neglected or silenced.

Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item:

http://hdl.handle.net/10453/130210