The moral economy of sex work in Mombasa, Kenya

Abstract

This paper investigates the process of individuals trying to figure out how the neoliberal economy works by focusing on women selling sex in Mombasa, Kenya. The article will explore the key tensions prevailing in sex work through encounters with supernatural forces narrated by women selling sex. The analysis presented will argue that there are two key tensions that define the moral economy of sex work in Mombasa: the strong stratification among sex workers that position a minority of already better off women in more advantageous ways, thereby leaving most others in precarity; and worries about changing masculinities that result in men who are non-human. Both of those tensions signify the anxieties surrounding an occupation that historically allowed women to accumulate capital and re-insert themselves into Kenyan society in more advantageous positions (see for instance, White 1990, Bujra 1977). Furthermore, the contemporary lived realities of selling sex also speak to the processes of neoliberalization that are internalized by women selling sex and are becoming a key feature of contemporary commercial sex work.