***Nominated for the Association for Feminist Anthropology Michelle Z. Roslaldo Book Prize 2015***
***Shortlisted for the BBC 4 Thinking Allowed Ethnography of the Year Award 2014***
***Nominated for the 2014 American Sociological Association Asia/Transnational Book Award***
***Nominated for the 2013 Humanist Sociology Book Award***
Dealing with the complex and discomforting ‘grey ‘area where sex, love and money collide, this book highlights the general materiality of everyday sex that takes place in all relationships. In doing so, it draws attention to and destigmatizes the transactional elements within many ‘normative’ partnerships – be they transnational, inter-ethnic or otherwise.
Focusing on Cambodia, and on a subculture of young women employed in the tourist bar scene referred to as ‘professional girlfriends’, the book shows that the resulting transnational relationships between Cambodian women and their foreign partners are complex and multi-layered. It argues that the sex-for-cash prostitution framework is no longer an appropriate model of analysis. Instead, a new vocabulary of ‘professional girlfriends’ and ‘transactional sex’ is used, with which the nuanced complexities of these transnational partnerships are analysed.
Interdisciplinary in nature, the book inspires new understandings of gender, power, sex, love, desire, political economy and materiality within everyday relationships around the globe. It is a useful contribution for students and scholars of Anthropology, Sociology, Southeast Asian Studies, Gender and Sexuality Studies, and Cultural Studies.
***Shortlisted for the BBC 4 Thinking Allowed Ethnography of the Year Award 2014***
***Nominated for the 2014 American Sociological Association Asia/Transnational Book Award***
***Nominated for the 2013 Humanist Sociology Book Award***
Dealing with the complex and discomforting ‘grey ‘area where sex, love and money collide, this book highlights the general materiality of everyday sex that takes place in all relationships. In doing so, it draws attention to and destigmatizes the transactional elements within many ‘normative’ partnerships – be they transnational, inter-ethnic or otherwise.
Focusing on Cambodia, and on a subculture of young women employed in the tourist bar scene referred to as ‘professional girlfriends’, the book shows that the resulting transnational relationships between Cambodian women and their foreign partners are complex and multi-layered. It argues that the sex-for-cash prostitution framework is no longer an appropriate model of analysis. Instead, a new vocabulary of ‘professional girlfriends’ and ‘transactional sex’ is used, with which the nuanced complexities of these transnational partnerships are analysed.
Interdisciplinary in nature, the book inspires new understandings of gender, power, sex, love, desire, political economy and materiality within everyday relationships around the globe. It is a useful contribution for students and scholars of Anthropology, Sociology, Southeast Asian Studies, Gender and Sexuality Studies, and Cultural Studies.
Academic Reviews of Monograph
Nicola Mai (2015), Feminist Review, 109 (e26-e27) http://www.palgrave-journals.com/fr/journal/v109/n1/full/fr201445a.html
Nicolas Lainez (2014) Asian Journal of Social Science, 42: 171–196; and La Vie des Idées (French), Feb 14. http://www.laviedesidees.fr/Les-sentiments-meles-du-tourisme.html
Fabian Thien (2013), Erdkunde: Archive for Scientific Geography, 67(3): 284-285.
Nicola Mai (2015), Feminist Review, 109 (e26-e27) http://www.palgrave-journals.com/fr/journal/v109/n1/full/fr201445a.html
Nicolas Lainez (2014) Asian Journal of Social Science, 42: 171–196; and La Vie des Idées (French), Feb 14. http://www.laviedesidees.fr/Les-sentiments-meles-du-tourisme.html
Fabian Thien (2013), Erdkunde: Archive for Scientific Geography, 67(3): 284-285.
