What does “seeing” tell us about the subjective experiences of those whose life stories we are invested in knowing? And how does the visual presence of the speaking subject of auto/biography complicate narratives of their lives? This talk considers two books of photography that document the lives of the residents of a home for retired sex workers in Mexico City. This paper probes the ways forms of representation that combine auto/biographical narrative with visual documentation transform our affective encounters with the social and sexual lives of sex workers in order to question the kinds of interpretive practices we bring to these knowledge projects.

Juana María Rodriguez is Professor of Gender and Women's Studies and Performance Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. She is the author of Sexual Futures, Queer Gestures, and Other Latina Longings (2014) and Queer Latinidad: Identity Practices, Discursive Spaces.