Abstract
Based on ethnographic research, this article aims to present an anthropological analysis of "sexual exploitation" as a political and juridical category in dispute and widely circulated in contemporary Brazil. Specifically, it pays special attention to data obtained from fieldwork on the sex markets in Amazonian border cities and the politics that surround them in terms of diverse publications, congressional bills, and other materials. I seek to understand how "sexual exploitation" is constructed in a capillary fashion as it crosses transnational, national, and local fields. In this way, I offer ideas on what "sexual exploitation" is and on what its productive capacity might be. I highlight how, despite extensive criticisms, this category has been gaining ground along its paths of (in)definition, deployment and expansion in recent years.
Key words:
Children and Adolescents; Sex markets; Prostitution; Politics; State.