Border Lives: Prostitute Women in Tijuana

Abstract

This paper examines the concrete social situation of women working as prostitutes in Tijuana Mexico and understanding the articulations among the competing social and cultural formations. Data were gathered from ongoing published work primarily in education and public health policy with both male and female prostitutes and from the researchers two-phase qualitative project. The interviews were analyzed to show how the identity narratives of the prostitute women complicate typical social science discussions of prostitution and constitute an implicit if ambiguously cited counternarrative to them. However despite meticulous analysis of the interviews the researchers often found themselves confused by the ambiguous narratives about their lives that affects the social theoretical cultural and historical frames. The stories of these individuals remain considerably unruly and recalcitrant and resist categorization. Likewise the experiences when read in the context of cultural studies practices and social scientific theory force the need to rethink their social implication. Overall a fuller understanding of these processes still eludes the researchers; however some hints were given to raise the deeper questions that need to be asked.