Dreaming the 'heaven', landing in the 'hell' : transnational analysis of Chinese middle-aged women who sell sex in Italy

Abstract

This doctoral dissertation analyzes the life trajectories of Chinese women who migrate to Europe and eventually engage in the sex industry in Italy. Based on a qualitative ethnographic research conducted in Italy between 2014 and 2016, the study is informed by the stories of 32 Chinese migrant sex workers (21 in-depth interviews, 11 informal chats collected during participant observation) and conversations with over 20 key-informants (e.g. police officers, social workers, medical personnel). At the intersection of migration and prostitution studies, the thesis adopts ‘cosmopolitanism’ as the overarching theoretical framework to illuminate the life trajectories of this particular group of migrants, i.e. middle- aged Chinese women who do not migrate initially for sex work. Yet, the study aims to understand why Chinese migrant women enter the sex industry after long-lasting experiences in other occupations in Italy. The core of the analysis is the interplay of structural obstacles and women’s agency, as well as the different experiences of mobility and immobility. Four main aspects of Chinese women’s lives are discussed. First, the thesis illuminates how Chinese women become transnational migrants by overcoming numerous challenges posed by their disadvantaged social locations and gendered cultural norms. Second, different migrant labors (e.g. factory and domestic work) experienced by Chinese women in Italy are recounted in relation to an overall sense of immobility with regards to their cosmopolitan aspiration. Thus, segregation within the living and working spaces of the Chinese immigrant community in Italy are addressed as crucial to facilitate women’s occupational shift from wage labors to sex work. Third, the thesis discusses how the sex industry works as a site of intensified transnational encounters with the host society through which Chinese women can learn and practice cosmopolitanism. Fourth, different arrangements with children (and grandchildren), Chinese husbands and new Italian partners finally reveal how Chinese migrant sex workers can achieve only ‘incomplete’ forms of cosmopolitanism. This doctoral dissertation argues that Chinese migrant women join the sex industry as a gendered weapon of resistance against failure of their cosmopolitan aspirations. The main contribution of this study is to integrate migration and prostitution literature by illuminating how engagement in sex work overseas may be the result of particular migration trajectories and implications. In this sense, this doctoral dissertation provides an alternative reading to the widespread assumption that migrants who sell sex are victims of sex trafficking. The thesis not only contributes to the understanding of migration and prostitution from a sociological perspective, but it also expands the knowledge about Chinese transnational migration and sheds light on the unexplored phenomenon of Chinese prostitution in Italy. Ultimately, this study represents a very rare attempt to address the involvement of middle-aged women in the sex industry.