struggling with. Perhaps your views can help?
Two days ago, I was describing my "beauty contest research
project" with a friend (a political scientist and economist)
in Hong Kong. While we both agreed that "the sex industry"
in Hong Kong is more accessible to the average working class
girl/woman than the middle class professions (which working
class women typically lack the cultural and linguistic
capital to access), we had very different views on what the
government should do.
Given limited government resources, he argued, the
government is justified to place its priorities in solving
explicit social problems like the drug trade, where most
people, and most importantly, including the "victims" (the
drug addicts) themselves agree that the trading and use of
drugs is doing them harm. However, in the case of "the sex
industry", more and more working class girls/women
apparently "willingly" join the industry for the material
rewards; in the 1990s in Hong Kong few girls/women are
forced into the industry because of poverty, but because of
the materialistic values (an expensive, materialistic life
style) that they subscribe to.
I argued that it is both the materialistic culture (promoted
and perpetuated by the commercial, media, advertising
agencies which are part of the global capitalistic market
economic mechanisms) and the lack of cultural capital to
access high-reward middle-class professions that drive
working class girls/women into the sex industry. (The wage
difference between working class jobs and middle class jobs
is huge in Hong Kong; e.g., the average monthly income of an
"average Hong Kong person" is about US$2,000, but a factory
worker's monthly salary is only about US$900. One can
marginally live on that in Hong Kong, and of course one cannot afford
many of the consumer goods bombarding you everyday in the
media on that salary).
However, my friend argued that this is all from my own
perspective, as a "middle-class intellectual", imposing my
own "values" on the "working class girl/woman". If they
willingly do it and do not find it harmful to themselves,
why should anyone be concerned about them or what they do?
I was pushed to reflect on my own position. Yes, who am I
to say what is right and what is wrong for someone else?
However, I still feel that it is not just that simple. The
sex industry is not as innocuous as it appears to some. It
seems to me to have far more invisible but harmful effects
on all of us, middle class or working class, on the human
species as a whole.
Today, I am reading Bourdieu's conversation with Terry
Eagleton, recorded in New Left Review, 1992, pp. 111-121.
In the last paragraph, Bourdieu talked about doxa and he
said,
... The doxic attitude does not mean happiness; it
means bodily submission, unconscious submission, which
may indicate a lot of internalized tension, a lot of
bodily suffering. ... I have discovered a lot of
suffering which had been hidden by this smooth working
of habitus. It helps people to adjust, but it causes
internalized contradictions. When this happens, some
may, for instance, become drug addicts. I try to help
the person who is suffering, to make their situation
explicit in a sort of socioanalysis conducted in a
friendly and supportive way. Often when I do that, the
individuals experience a sort of intellectual pleasure;
they say `Yes, I understand what happens to me.' But
at the same time it is very sad. (Bourdieu, 1991, p.
121)
I feel very sad, too. What should be the role of the
researcher? Fellow xmca-ers are familiar with this question
from me; I kept asking this question when I was doing my
doctoral work, and I keep asking it when I have graduated
and entered into the academic game as a junior member. I
know to play this game well, one has to publish (and no need
to remind me, my boss keeps reminding me that to get tenure,
you have to publish and publish and publis... ). But
what's the point? Are we deluding ourselves? We "middle-
class intellectuals, academics" are doing what we are doing
mainly to play this academic game well. Is there anything
more than that? Anything that we do which has some value
apart from that?
Anyway, if you find this question too heavy, just delete
this message and go back to what we are best at: writing
papers for journals and books.
(I don't have an answer? Do you?)
Best,
Angel
-------------
Angel Lin
Dept of English
City University of Hong Kong
E-Mail: enangel who-is-at cityu.edu.hk