CALL FOR PAPERS: “Demystifying Sex Work and Sex Workers”

Special Issue for Wagadu, Journal of Transnational Women’s and Gender Studies

Edited by Susan Dewey, Ph.D.

University Studies, DePauw University

Sex workers throughout the world share a uniquely maligned mystique that simultaneously positions them as sexually desirable and socially repulsive. In order to better understand how these processes function cross-culturally, this special issue of Wagadu invites papers focusing upon the everyday lives of sex workers, broadly defined as those who exchange sexual services for something of value. While recent years have witnessed a dramatic outpouring of feminist scholarship on sex work (Bernstein 2007; Day 2007; Doezema 2001; Kempadoo 2005, Kuo 2002; Munro and Della Giusta 2008), much of this literature unintentionally reinforces the social stigmatization of sex workers by depicting them solely through their income-earning activities. This burgeoning research has convincingly demonstrated that sex work is embedded in a complex social matrix that often centres upon sex workers’ perceptions of their individual choices and responsibilities (Agustín 2007; Bott 2006; Dewey 2008; Weitzer 2009). A limited amount of academic work has presented sex workers as complete social beings by depicting the full picture of their daily lives and economic struggles with appropriate complexity (Barton 2002; Brennan 2004; Kelly 2008; Raphael 2004; Wesely 2003, 2002; Zheng 2009). Accordingly, this special issue will fill a significant gap in the literature by examining how individual biography intersects with structural position to condition certain categories of individuals to believe that their self-esteem, material worth and possibilities for life improvement are invested in their bodies and sexual labour. Such beliefs inevitably combine with sex workers’ knowledge of their marginal, conflicted social status to inform many of their decision-making strategies. Papers in this issue will thus illustrate the processes by which sex workers are able to see themselves as agents and entrepreneurs despite pervasive social messages to the contrary.
They particularly welcome papers focusing on the everyday life experiences of sex workers that address the following topics, although others are welcome for consideration:

•occupation-specific perceptions of risk, fair exchange and emotional labour, with particular regard to biological family and other members of social and financial support networks;
•life history analyses that explore both the long and short-term impacts of what sex workers often describe as a short-term survival strategy;
•perceptions of institutional processes that translate social stigma into public policy, particularly by placing unmarried, low income mothers at a serious disadvantage in the post-welfare reform era;
•critical analyses of the relationships between the feminization of poverty, homelessness, substance abuse and sex work, including assumptions made about such connections by policymakers and popular culture
•relationships with and perceptions of social service providers, including special issues for migrant and/or undocumented sex workers;
•personal narratives describing sex workers’ negotiation of biological family relationships and other social networks, including others’ awareness of sex work as a source of income and support;
•experiences in previous non-sex work employment and perceptions of sustainable options for other forms of non-sex work, with particular regard to sex workers’ long term aspirations;
•the complex intersections of social stigma with individual agency as sex workers seek to define themselves on terms outside the narrow purview of their labour;
•individual sex workers’ experiences with law enforcement officials, with particular attention to perceptions of the impact of anti-trafficking initiatives on sex workers’ everyday lives.
Please send abstracts (300 words max.) by January 15, 2010 and, if accepted for publication, complete essays by April 15, 2010. All submissions should be submitted electronically to wagadu.org

For other inquiries, please email Dr. Dewey at susandewey@depauw.edu