title: Voice, boundary work, and visibility in research on sex work in Morocco.
abstract: How might the ethnographer conduct research on health and suffering among populations who would rather remain hidden? Drawing on my research with female sex workers in southern Morocco, I suggest and demonstrate an approach that allows interlocutors' discretionary practices to guide ethnographic inquiry. I show how boundary work--as a politics of visibility founded on practices of discretion, concealment, and distancing--emerged as central to my interlocutors' livelihood strategies and their efforts to enact moral personhood, integrate themselves into networks of solidarity, and articulate social critiques. A methodological focus on discourses and practices of boundary drawing, I argue, was essential for conceptualizing and representing the suffering of the women with whom I worked. Using boundary work as a guide, the ethnographer does not give voice to suffering, but learns how suffering is already voiced as part of attempts to survive, aspire, and become.
authors.affiliation: a Mailman School of Public Health , Columbia University , New York , USA.
authors.forename: Anne
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Montgomery
mesh_terms: D060432:Anthropology, Medical / Q000941:ethics / Q000379:methods; D005260:Female; D015658:HIV Infections; D006801:Humans; D009018:Morocco / Q000208:ethnology; D033262:Narration; D009938:Organizations; D011477:Sex Work / Q000208:ethnology*; D060386:Sex Workers / Q000523:psychology*; D013315:Stress, Psychological
keywords: HIV/AIDS; Morocco; agency; representation; sex work