Ageing/body/sex/work – Migrant women’s narratives of intimacy and ageing in commercial sex and elder care work

Abstract

This article analyses how sex and elder-care workers negotiate intimacy and ageing in their work. We find surprising similarities between sex and care work that derive from the ways in which Eastern European migrant women are sexualised in the sites of our studies: Italy and Finland. The bodywork and intimate labour conducted by the women is defined in part by the social status of their work in society, in part by the ageing bodies upon whom the work is done, and in part by the ways in which the bodies of the workers are gendered, sexualised and racialised. The article draws on interview and participant observation data collected during two ethnographic research projects with female migrants from post-socialist countries working as eldercare workers in Italy and in sex workers in Finland.