ZONA NORTE: The Post-Structural Body of Erotic Dancers and Sex Workers in Tijuana, San Diego and Los Angeles: An Auto/ethnography of Desire and Addiction
Author: Michael Hemmingson
Date Of Publication: Nov 2008
Isbn13: 978-1-4438-0010-5
Isbn: 1-4438-0010-4
Zona Norte: The Post-Structural Body of Erotic Dancers and Sex Workers in Tijuana, San Diego and Los Angeles: An Auto/ethnography of Desire and Addiction started out as an ethnographic study of prostitution on both sides of the U.S./Mexican border and, as cultural anthropologist Michael Hemmingson explains, turned inward as a study of the self, or what is referred to as “auto/ethnography” in today’s lexicon of qualitative research. The author studies himself within the culture of the Other –- he examines his feelings, memories, and reactions as he conducts his participant observations and interviews in the field, questioning why he chose to research erotic and exotic dancers, strippers, hookers, and various sex workers on both sides of an international border, revealing how the subjects are alike, and how they are different, and how they survive in their worlds.

Auto/ethnography is one of the fastest growing and popular sub-fields in sociology, anthropology, and communications today. Books and anthologies are widely published, special journal issues appear each year on the subject, and there are an increasing number of dissertations in all fields of qualitative research cropping up from universities in the United States, Great Britain, Germany, Australia, and New Zealand. Zona Norte is the latest contribution to this vibrant new approach to living the ethnographic life, as both a scholar and autobiographer.

Michael Hemmingson is an independent scholar whose fieldwork in anthropology and communications centers on deviance in society and the edges of cultural exploration. His collection, Auto/ethnographies: Sex, Death, and Symbolic Interaction is published by The Borgo Press. Other academic books include Gordon Lish and His Influence on 20th Century Literature (Routledge) and Women in the Work and Life of Raymond Carver (McFarland). His articles and essays have appeared in Life Writing, Forum: Social Science Research, Journal of Sex Research, ZYZZYVA, and the San Diego Reader. He has published several novels and edited four anthologies, and his feature film, The Watermelon, was produced by LightSong Films in 2008. He lives in southern California.

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