The Prostitute as an Urban Savage, Paris 1830-1914 French Nineteenth-Century Premises of the Anthropological Demography of Health - Charbit, Yves (The Anthropological Demography of Health)
This chapter explores the nineteenth-century premises of the anthropological demography of health, especially the category of ‘urban savages’, which is proposed as a proxy to the reality of prostitution as perceived by the dominant social groups of the time. The chapter first delineates the concept of urban savages and discusses to what extent period writings on the prostitute as an archetypal figure anticipate later anthropological demography. It then turns to the issue of sexuality and public health. At the beginning of the period under study, prostitutes were blamed for propagating venereal epidemics. Later on, when the ‘venereal peril’ reached alarming proportions, public health specialists developed a different argument. It is argued that throughout the nineteenth century, the perception of the urban savage as a radically distinct out-group did not remain static, reflecting changes in social, economic, political, and ideological contexts. Moreover, as the sexual behaviour of the in-group evolved, barriers weakened and boundaries between in- and out-groups became porous. Present theoretical themes often seen as directly relevant to prostitution, notably Foucault’s notion of bio-power, prove inadequate. Finally, ideology and anthropology converged, with the body of the prostitute being the locus of intertwined threats to nineteenth-century French patriarchal bourgeois society.
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198862437.001.0001
Keywords: bookSection