Sex, Work and Rights: Contested Meanings, Epistemological Stigmatization and Transformative Knowledge on Sex Work in a Globalised Europe

In spite of the persistent marginalisation and stigmatisation affecting sex workers and sex worker rights organisations, their mobilisation has become more visible and connected across Europe, and has contributed, often in collaboration with feminist, post-colonial and queer researchers, to a better representation of the diversity of sex work. Importantly, these contributions have highlighted the extent to which prostitution, anti-trafficking and migration policies, as well as the rearrangement of urban and digital spaces, impact on sex workers’ lives, health and rights. Today, knowledge on sex work is more accessible and more sophisticated, and in particular there is increased awareness that the world of sex work encompasses a wide array of subjects and practices, spaces and working conditions - from exploitative to favorable, with a whole range in between. This new scenario has led some authors to characterise this expansion as an ‘explosion of sex work research’ in terms of quantity, variety of issues addressed within the sex industry, institutionalization and fundings. However, while this may hold partially true in the context of anglo-american academia - which in Europe is primarily led by British universities - it is certainly not the case across different European contexts.