Special Money, Special Self: Affect and Invisibility in High-Denomination Cash Transactions

• In Event: Economic Sociology Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Roundtable 1: Relational Work

Abstract

Vivana Zelizer (1989)’s special monies model established a “plurality of different kinds of monies” and argued that culture and social structure influence economic actions (pg. 351). Where classical theories described money as a fungible, rational, and impersonal, Zelizer (1989, 2005, 2012) advanced an understanding of money as inherently situated and relational. Sociologists have since embraced the special monies model, extending it to a variety of empirical settings (Almeling, 2007; Bandelj, 2002; Carruthers & Espeland, 1998). This paper applies the special monies model to the sex industry to investigate the role of emotion in high-denomination cash transactions among dancers in gentlemen’s clubs. I find that dancers construct special selves specifically for performing emotional labor in the club. The special identities that dancers construct are affectively dependent on their cash earnings. Yet outside of the club, cash earnings obscure the relational ties dancers cultivate through their performing special selves. Moreover, when held in large denominations, cash is often not recognized as legitimate income, complicating dancers’ efforts to participate in everyday life, particularly when securing stable housing. Taken together, these findings extend Zelizer (1989)’s theory to demonstrate how high-denomination cash both affectively sustains emotional labor within the club and lends to institutional discrimination and relational invisibility experienced by dancers in their everyday lives.

Author

• Elizabeth Anne Miller, University of California-San Diego