Limited agency in a neo-liberal world: the case of female sex workers in Mombasa, Kenya.

Neo-liberal practices based on economic theory and supported by appropriate discourses are explored in this thesis to show how these processes affect social, economic and patriarchal structures, and explore their gendered effects. The sex industries are analysed as an example to show how women who are in a disadvantaged position in society manoeuvre the socio-economic and patriarchal scene, ‘bargain with patriarchy’, and attempt to make a living or progress socially and economically through unconventional choices. This task is undertaken through the analysis of Mombasa self-identified sex workers’ life stories and narratives. Neo-liberal practice resulted in increased poverty and ruptures in social structures. Even though some women manage to manoeuvre the patriarchal and economic systems of Kenya to their own advantage through unorthodox choices (selling sex being one of them) and manage to change their initial disadvantaged position, many women are unsuccessful in this undertaking. An analysis of sex workers’ work strategies and plans for the future shows that women aim to capitalise on gender and economic inequalities that marginalise them in order to advance. In order to succeed in this endeavour, women have to find entrepreneurial ways to perform certain socially accepted gendered roles. Therefore, it will be argued that in a socio-economic system influenced by neo-liberalism that builds on gender inequality, the individuals who internalise neo-liberal logic can succeed in improving their initial disadvantaged position to some extent, but that such individual agency is limited because it fails to challenge socio-economic and patriarchal structures

Money talks: moral economies of earning a living in neoliberal East Africa

Neoliberal restructuring has targeted not just the economy, but also polity, society and culture, in the name of creating capitalist market societies. The societal repercussions of neoliberal policy and reform in terms of moral economy remain understudied. This article seeks to address this gap by analysing moral economy characteristics and dynamics in neoliberalised communities, as perceived by traders in Uganda and sex workers in Kenya. The interview data reveal perceived drivers that contributed to a significant moral dominance of money, self-interest, short-termism, opportunism and pragmatism. Equally notable are a perceived (i) close interaction between political–economic and moral–economic dynamics, and (ii) significant impact of the political–economic structure on moral agency. Respondents primarily referred to material factors usually closely linked to neoliberal reform, as key drivers of local moral economies. We thus speak of a neoliberalisation of moral economies, itself part of the wider process of embedding and locking-in market society structures in the two countries. An improved political economy of moral economy can help keep track of this phenomenon