Gringo Gulch

Nuancing and unsettling simple binaries between men and women, North and South, rich and poor, agent and victim, Rivers-Moore uses rich ethnography to vividly show how tourist sex workers and their clients are all involved in complex and internally contradictory projects of self-fashioning and class mobility in a context in which sex and affective care are fully commoditized. A major contribution to the literature on sex tourism, the way Rivers-Moore highlights class, while interweaving gender, sex, race, and nation-state, is very impressive and reshapes the agenda. --Peter Wade, author of Race and Sex in Latin America A stellar ethnographic account of the sexual politics of neoliberalism in Costa Rica. Rivers-Moore makes a deft and compelling argument about the diverse ways that sexual commerce has become integral to a broad range of social, political, and economic transformations. --Elizabeth Bernstein, author of Temporarily Yours: Intimacy, Authenticity, and the Commerce of Sex Gringo Gulch is an engaging and insightful read, and I would recommend it to anyone seeking to understand or challenge assumptions of sex tourists and sex workers. --Canadian Women's Studies Returning the focus to the dynamics of social class, this detailed ethnographic account tells us more about the meanings of the purchase, sale and regulation of sex and its role in the social mobility of sex workers and their clients. Through exquisite detail of the participants lives and careful sociological analysis, we learn more about the interlinks between sex tourism, labor, race, and the transnational political economy. Gringo Gulch is an important landmark in the studies of sex tourism and the broader context of the globalization of the sex industry. --Teela Sanders, author of Prostitution: Sexwork, Policy and Practice