Precarious Empowerments analyzes sexual labor in ‘tinted cafes,’ spaces hidden from public view where women dance for their male clients and clandestinely perform sexual services. Drawing from an embodied ethnographic account of the everyday lives of five coffee shops that fit into the lower status ‘tinted cafes’ where sexual labor is common, this thesis examines sex workers’ experiences at the intersection of class, racial, and gender hierarchies. From an intersectional perspective, my study examines how inequalities based on class, gender, race, nationality, and body capital are reproduced and contested by sex workers. Based on the multiple facets of the precariousness marking sex workers’ experiences, beyond socioeconomic marginalization, it asks; how are inequalities reproduced through women’s embodied labor? How do women negotiate inequalities and exclusion?
In intertextuality with the literature on sexualized and emotional labor in the global South, this thesis explores sex work as a service that embodies gendered, transnational social structures, but also as a practice that represents sex workers’ resourcefulness and resilience. Moving away from conceptualizations of sexual labor as a totalizing patriarchal oppression per se, it conceives sexual labor as situated and operating relationally with other forms of exclusion. Interweaving an ethnographic narrative with a theoretical and a historical contextualization, Precarious empowerments reveals how differences in terms of class, gender, race, and nationality are integral to the daily practices and the consumption of sexual services in ‘tinted’ coffee shops. Women’s empowerment gains value when seen in opposition to hegemonic power relations and the social and symbolic dimensions of the precarity marking working-class women’s lives. Sex workers’ narratives point to the strategies, arrangements, and resources they rely on to improve their socioeconomic status, how they face stigma, and the tactics used to navigate a context simultaneously marked by precariousness and condemning the work they perform. Understanding how sex workers experience this precarity, due to the criminalization and the stigmatization of their labor, highlights the need for a radical transformation in how sex work is signified and addressed by the Chilean state and society.
","abstract_html":"<p><em>Precarious Empowerments</em> analyzes sexual labor in ‘tinted cafes,’ spaces hidden from public view where women dance for their male clients and clandestinely perform sexual services. Drawing from an embodied ethnographic account of the everyday lives of five coffee shops that fit into the lower status ‘tinted cafes’ where sexual labor is common, this thesis examines sex workers’ experiences at the intersection of class, racial, and gender hierarchies. From an intersectional perspective, my study examines how inequalities based on class, gender, race, nationality, and body capital are reproduced and contested by sex workers. Based on the multiple facets of the precariousness marking sex workers’ experiences, beyond socioeconomic marginalization, it asks; how are inequalities reproduced through women’s embodied labor? How do women negotiate inequalities and exclusion?</p> <p>In intertextuality with the literature on sexualized and emotional labor in the global South, this thesis explores sex work as a service that embodies gendered, transnational social structures, but also as a practice that represents sex workers’ resourcefulness and resilience. Moving away from conceptualizations of sexual labor as a totalizing patriarchal oppression per se, it conceives sexual labor as situated and operating relationally with other forms of exclusion. Interweaving an ethnographic narrative with a theoretical and a historical contextualization, <em>Precarious empowerments</em> reveals how differences in terms of class, gender, race, and nationality are integral to the daily practices and the consumption of sexual services in ‘tinted’ coffee shops. Women’s empowerment gains value when seen in opposition to hegemonic power relations and the social and symbolic dimensions of the precarity marking working-class women’s lives. Sex workers’ narratives point to the strategies, arrangements, and resources they rely on to improve their socioeconomic status, how they face stigma, and the tactics used to navigate a context simultaneously marked by precariousness and condemning the work they perform. Understanding how sex workers experience this precarity, due to the criminalization and the stigmatization of their labor, highlights the need for a radical transformation in how sex work is signified and addressed by the Chilean state and society.</p>","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Ortiz, Pilar"],"institution":"The Graduate School and University Center of The City University of New York","degree_name":"Doctor of Philosophy","degree_level":"Doctoral","degree_discipline":"Sociology","degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":[],"advisors":["Victoria Pitts-Taylor"],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":["Sharon Zukin","Carolina Bank Muñoz","Lynn Chancer"],"year":2020,"date_issued":"2020-09-01T07:00:00Z","date_published":"2020-09-01T07:00:00Z","updated_at":"2026-07-24T02:00:26Z","subjects":["Gender and Sexuality","Inequality and Stratification","Migration Studies","Place and Environment","Race and Ethnicity","sexual labor","Chile","intersectional feminism","inequalities","coffee shops"],"languages":[],"rights":[],"rights_urls":[],"identifier_entries":[]},"links":{"outbound_url":"https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/4072","outbound_label":"Repository record","outbound_source":"dc:identifier"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:contributor.advisor","label":"Advisor","values":["Victoria Pitts-Taylor"]},{"key":"dc:contributor.committeemember","label":"Committee Member","values":["Sharon Zukin","Carolina Bank Muñoz","Lynn Chancer"]},{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Ortiz, Pilar"]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:date.available","label":"Dc Date Available","values":["2020-09-13T07:00:00Z"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_discipline","label":"Discipline","values":["Sociology"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_level","label":"Degree Level","values":["Doctoral"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_name","label":"Degree Name","values":["Doctor of Philosophy"]},{"key":"thesis:institution_name","label":"Thesis Institution Name","values":["The Graduate School and University Center of The City University of New York"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["Gender and Sexuality","Inequality and Stratification","Migration Studies","Place and Environment","Race and Ethnicity","sexual labor","Chile","intersectional feminism","inequalities","coffee shops"]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/4072"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description.abstract","label":"Abstract","values":["Precarious Empowerments analyzes sexual labor in ‘tinted cafes,’ spaces hidden from public view where women dance for their male clients and clandestinely perform sexual services. Drawing from an embodied ethnographic account of the everyday lives of five coffee shops that fit into the lower status ‘tinted cafes’ where sexual labor is common, this thesis examines sex workers’ experiences at the intersection of class, racial, and gender hierarchies. From an intersectional perspective, my study examines how inequalities based on class, gender, race, nationality, and body capital are reproduced and contested by sex workers. Based on the multiple facets of the precariousness marking sex workers’ experiences, beyond socioeconomic marginalization, it asks; how are inequalities reproduced through women’s embodied labor? How do women negotiate inequalities and exclusion?
In intertextuality with the literature on sexualized and emotional labor in the global South, this thesis explores sex work as a service that embodies gendered, transnational social structures, but also as a practice that represents sex workers’ resourcefulness and resilience. Moving away from conceptualizations of sexual labor as a totalizing patriarchal oppression per se, it conceives sexual labor as situated and operating relationally with other forms of exclusion. Interweaving an ethnographic narrative with a theoretical and a historical contextualization, Precarious empowerments reveals how differences in terms of class, gender, race, and nationality are integral to the daily practices and the consumption of sexual services in ‘tinted’ coffee shops. Women’s empowerment gains value when seen in opposition to hegemonic power relations and the social and symbolic dimensions of the precarity marking working-class women’s lives. Sex workers’ narratives point to the strategies, arrangements, and resources they rely on to improve their socioeconomic status, how they face stigma, and the tactics used to navigate a context simultaneously marked by precariousness and condemning the work they perform. Understanding how sex workers experience this precarity, due to the criminalization and the stigmatization of their labor, highlights the need for a radical transformation in how sex work is signified and addressed by the Chilean state and society.
"]},{"key":"dc:title","label":"Title","values":["Precarious Empowerments: Sexual Labor in the Coffee Shops of Santiago, Chile"]}]}],"canonical_facts":{"dc:contributor.advisor":["Victoria Pitts-Taylor"],"dc:contributor.committeemember":["Sharon Zukin","Carolina Bank Muñoz","Lynn Chancer"],"dc:creator":["Ortiz, Pilar"],"dc:date.available":["2020-09-13T07:00:00Z"],"dc:description.abstract":["Precarious Empowerments analyzes sexual labor in ‘tinted cafes,’ spaces hidden from public view where women dance for their male clients and clandestinely perform sexual services. Drawing from an embodied ethnographic account of the everyday lives of five coffee shops that fit into the lower status ‘tinted cafes’ where sexual labor is common, this thesis examines sex workers’ experiences at the intersection of class, racial, and gender hierarchies. From an intersectional perspective, my study examines how inequalities based on class, gender, race, nationality, and body capital are reproduced and contested by sex workers. Based on the multiple facets of the precariousness marking sex workers’ experiences, beyond socioeconomic marginalization, it asks; how are inequalities reproduced through women’s embodied labor? How do women negotiate inequalities and exclusion?
In intertextuality with the literature on sexualized and emotional labor in the global South, this thesis explores sex work as a service that embodies gendered, transnational social structures, but also as a practice that represents sex workers’ resourcefulness and resilience. Moving away from conceptualizations of sexual labor as a totalizing patriarchal oppression per se, it conceives sexual labor as situated and operating relationally with other forms of exclusion. Interweaving an ethnographic narrative with a theoretical and a historical contextualization, Precarious empowerments reveals how differences in terms of class, gender, race, and nationality are integral to the daily practices and the consumption of sexual services in ‘tinted’ coffee shops. Women’s empowerment gains value when seen in opposition to hegemonic power relations and the social and symbolic dimensions of the precarity marking working-class women’s lives. Sex workers’ narratives point to the strategies, arrangements, and resources they rely on to improve their socioeconomic status, how they face stigma, and the tactics used to navigate a context simultaneously marked by precariousness and condemning the work they perform. Understanding how sex workers experience this precarity, due to the criminalization and the stigmatization of their labor, highlights the need for a radical transformation in how sex work is signified and addressed by the Chilean state and society.
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