This book illustrates how intimate workers in different socio-cultural contexts negotiate the commercial uses of their sexuality, identity, affect, and bodies, thereby often defying inequality, impoverishment, and resource depletion in their regions. The studies shed light on the multi-faceted experiences of subjects involved in intimate economies, oscillating between personal empowerment and agency, as well as the required subjection to the demands of the current market regime, entailing participation in precarious employment, often involving bodily risk, economic exploitation and stigmatization. The contributions demonstrate the interrelatedness of market intimacy, family economies, and transnational care arrangements, and thereby challenge Western notions of the subject and the free market.

Susanne Hofmann is currently guest professor at the Institute for Migration Research and Intercultural Studies (IMIS) at the University of Osnabrück. Her research explores training schemes on human trafficking prevention in Brazil and Mexico. Adi Moreno is a research fellow at the Haifa Feminist Institute. Her research interests involve family practices, assisted reproduction markets and non-normative forms of parenting in the Israeli LGBT community.