Full Description
2020 - Ruth Benedict Prize - Association for Queer Anthropology, American Anthropological Association
2020 - Gloria E. AnzaldÚa Book Prize - National Women's Studies Association
2020 - Honorable Mention, Sara A. Whaley Book Prize
2021 - Best Book in Social Sciences - Mexico Section, Latin American Studies Association (LASA)
Sex, drugs, religion, and love are potent combinations in la zona, a regulated prostitution zone in the city of Reynosa, across the border from Hidalgo, Texas. During the years 2008 and 2009, a time of intense drug violence, Sarah Luna met and built relationships with two kinds of migrants, women who moved from rural Mexico to Reynosa to become sex workers and American missionaries who moved from the United States to forge a fellowship with those workers.
Luna examines the entanglements, both intimate and financial, that define their lives. Using the concept of obligar, she delves into the connections that tie sex workers to their families, their clients, their pimps, the missionaries, and the drug dealers-and to the guilt, power, and comfort of faith. Love in the Drug War scrutinizes not only la zona and the people who work to survive there, but also Reynosa itself-including the influences of the United States-adding nuance and new understanding to the current Mexico-US border crisis.
Contents
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Part I. Drug Work and Sex Work in Reynosa
1. Dinero FÁcil: The Gendered Moral Economies of Drug Work and Sex Work
2. Rumors of Violence and Feelings of Vulnerability
Part II. The Intimate and Economic Obligations of Sex Workers
3. Stigmatized Whores, Obligated Mothers, and Respectable Prostitutes
4. "Sometimes We, as Mothers, Are to Blame": Drug-Addicted Sex Workers and the Politics of Blame
Part III. Missionary Projects in Boystown
5. The Love Triad between Sex Workers, Missionaries, and God
6. Love and Conflict in Sex Worker/Missionary Relationships
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Index
