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Author ORCID Identifier
https://orcid.org/0009-0001-1145-656X
AccessType
Campus-Only Access for Five (5) Years
Document Type
dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Degree Program
Afro-American Studies
Year Degree Awarded
2023
Month Degree Awarded
September
First Advisor
Traci Parker
Second Advisor
James Smethurst
Third Advisor
TreaAndrea Russworm
Subject Categories
Africana Studies | Other Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies | Women's Studies
Abstract
“The (Un)Willing Machine: Black Women, Sex Work, and Technology, 1880-2015” is a historical study of the theoretical and practical relationship between Black women who engage in various aspects of the sex industry and technologies of their time. It argues that Black women’s relationship to technology has been fundamentally impacted by the historical usage of their bodies as machines of reproduction and labor while also arguing that Black women sex workers provide a nuanced lens to view this relationship due to the recognized links between their labor and their bodies. Each chapter undertakes a new technology or innovation to show the breadth of the ties between the sex industry, race, gender, and technology. Drawing from history, cultural studies, digital culture studies, and Black feminist theories, “The (Un)Willing Machine” proves that Black women sex workers have a specialized relationship with technology that can be seen through their acts of subversion and their negotiations of sexual labor.
DOI
https://doi.org/10.7275/35963574
Recommended Citation
Sims, Yelana, "The (Un)Willing Machine: Black Women, Sex Work, and Technology, 1880-2015" (2023). Doctoral Dissertations. 2989.
https://doi.org/10.7275/35963574
https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations_2/2989
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.