IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v53y2001i1p99-121.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Condom use, power and HIV/AIDS risk: sex-workers bargain for survival in Hillbrow/Joubert Park/Berea, Johannesburg

Author

Listed:
  • Wojcicki, Janet Maia
  • Malala, Josephine

Abstract

Through interviews with 50 female sex-workers in the Hillbrow/Berea/Joubert Park area of Johannesburg, this paper explores sexual negotiations between men and women in the sex industry. This paper focuses on factors that affect sexual decision-making including safer sex practices. In moving beyond approaches that emphasize women's 'powerlessness' in sexual negotiation, this article focuses on ways in which sex-workers capitalize on clients' reluctance to use condoms in sexual exchanges. We emphasize sex-worker's agency and use a broader, Foucauldian understanding of power, which couples power with resistance. Further, this paper examines other elements of the sex industry that contribute to unsafe sex such as competition between women for clients and violence in the industry. Finally, this paper suggests that HIV-prevention programs take cognizance that power negotiations between men and women cannot be simplistically understood as men having power and women being powerless. Rather, this article contributes to a growing body of literature in medical anthropology, which elucidates the complexities of sexual negotiations between men and women. This focus on agency is important in trying to lessen the stigma and discrimination that sex-workers face at the hands of clients, pimps/managers, police and health care workers.

Suggested Citation

  • Wojcicki, Janet Maia & Malala, Josephine, 2001. "Condom use, power and HIV/AIDS risk: sex-workers bargain for survival in Hillbrow/Joubert Park/Berea, Johannesburg," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 53(1), pages 99-121, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:53:y:2001:i:1:p:99-121
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277-9536(00)00315-4
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Sanders, Teela, 2006. "Female sex workers as health educators with men who buy sex: Utilising narratives of rationalisations," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 62(10), pages 2434-2444, May.
    2. Dunkle, Kristin L. & Jewkes, Rachel & Nduna, Mzikazi & Jama, Nwabisa & Levin, Jonathan & Sikweyiya, Yandisa & Koss, Mary P., 2007. "Transactional sex with casual and main partners among young South African men in the rural Eastern Cape: Prevalence, predictors, and associations with gender-based violence," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 65(6), pages 1235-1248, September.
    3. Luke, Nancy, 2006. "Exchange and Condom Use in Informal Sexual Relationships in Urban Kenya," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 54(2), pages 319-348, January.
    4. Shannon, Kate & Kerr, Thomas & Allinott, Shari & Chettiar, Jill & Shoveller, Jean & Tyndall, Mark W., 2008. "Social and structural violence and power relations in mitigating HIV risk of drug-using women in survival sex work," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 66(4), pages 911-921, February.
    5. Mbonye, Martin & Siu, Godfrey & Seeley, Janet, 2022. "Marginal men, respectable masculinity and access to HIV services through intimate relationships with female sex workers in Kampala, Uganda," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 296(C).
    6. Silverman, Basha & Champney, Joanna & Steber, Sara-Ann & Zubritsky, Cynthia, 2015. "Collaborating for consensus: Considerations for convening Coalition stakeholders to promote a gender-based approach to addressing the health needs of sex workers," Evaluation and Program Planning, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 17-26.
    7. Jewkes, R. & Morrell, R., 2012. "Sexuality and the limits of agency among South African teenage women: Theorising femininities and their connections to HIV risk practises," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 74(11), pages 1729-1737.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:53:y:2001:i:1:p:99-121. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.