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In this chapter, the authors reflect on how the criminological agenda can move towards disrupting the boundaries that exist between the academe and sex work activism. The authors do so as academics who strive to affect social change outside of the academe, but do not attempt to offer a prescriptive ‘how to guide’. Indeed, they are themselves still grappling with the challenges of, and learning to be better at, ‘academic-activism’. The chapter begins by shining light on the activist underpinnings of the sex workers’ rights movement, before outlining some of the key scholarship in sex work studies, drawing particular attention to that which seeks to bring about social change. It then explores the utility of participatory action research (PAR) to sex work studies and reflects on how a PAR-inspired approach was used in the Beyond the Gaze research project. Here, the authors cast a critically reflexive eye over the unique realities, including the challenges, of integrating sex worker ‘peer researchers’ within the research team. The chapter concludes by considering how the criminological agenda must adapt if we truly want to bring truly want to bring about positive social change for sex workers, as well as how the current system of Higher Education ultimately stymies ‘academic-activist’ approaches to research.

The herstory of Black women in South Africa is one of sexualised forms of political, physical and psychological violence. A herstory of violence, oppression, exploitation, victimisation, imprisonment and police brutality. The apartheid government used violence to control women, their bodies, their religious and spiritual experiences. The feeling of disregard for African women is echoed in an interview with Mhlophe, a South African author, playwright and actress, when she talks about the Battle of Blood River and emphasises how there is no mention of women. ‘Did those men have no sisters, no mothers who helped them? Our history is very unbalanced’ (August, 1990, p. 332).

Studies that capture sex workers’ experiences, as activists in collectives and unions, are scarce. In India, the Karnataka Sex Workers’ Union (KSWU) materialized as a direct response to the violation of sex workers’ rights. The goal of this qualitative study was to review KSWU’s journey through the years. Forty-eight respondents participated in eight focus group discussions. Findings revealed the complexity of addressing the disparate needs of the heterogeneous group of sex workers in Karnataka. KSWU’s experiences suggest the potential for hybrid models of organizing that integrate activism with service provision.

Dirty workers occupy jobs and perform tasks that are unpleasant and considered distasteful or “tainted” to other members of society. However, while they experience challenges in managing stigma, they are generally successful in creating positive self-identities. Among these dirty jobs is prostitution. As dirty workers, women sex workers in American history have been treated with humor, ridicule and derision. This study aims to explain the social contexts and the limited economic choices these women faced and examine how they may have managed their dirty work’s stigma to create positive self-identities.

This paper uses primary and secondary sources to examine a 53-year period of American history and to frame these women’s stigma management within a “dirty work” perspective.

The author suggests that sex workers in riskier roles (e.g. street walkers, crib workers or “upstairs girls” in saloons) would have been less able to effectively manage stigma and create positive self-identities as compared to brothels workers, due to the brothel’s strong social support, healthier work culture and richer resources.

While sex work has changed significantly in the past century, the principles of identity management in this difficult and dirty work remain. Understanding the economic, social and individual challenges faced by these dirty workers will aid our understanding of the difficulties confronted by today’s sex workers.

Sex work is nearly absent from scholarly management literature. The lack of historical perspective and knowledge in this field limits a full understanding of how various types of dirty workers manage stigma.

In this paper, academics and managers of specialist services reflect on the shifting policy and funding landscapes that shape service provision for drug‐using sex workers in England and Ireland. The paper outlines the harm reduction and holistic principles that underpinned much original service provision concerned with public health in the face of an HIV epidemic and the limitations of services that equate drug use minimisation with sex work minimisation. It concludes that an ‘exiting’ and victim discourse dovetails with the well‐funded crime and disorder agenda, and that lobbyists on these issues are proving to be natural allies against harm reduction.

The sex work research field has expanded significantly in recent years, and a myriad of studies have highlighted diverse forms of injustice that sex workers endure. Sex workers are a marginalised and criminalised population and thus researchers have an ethical responsibility to undertake research that challenges existing social conditions and can help support sex worker-led campaigns for change. But what does ‘making a difference’ mean in the context of sex work research and what factors may constrain the extent to which this can be achieved? In this chapter, I explore the promise and pitfalls of undertaking politically engaged, activist research on sex work. I do so by reflecting on my experience as a researcher in the New Zealand context. The aim of this chapter is to unpack the challenges of undertaking research for social change and to explore the possibilities for strengthening the impact of research in this ideologically charged area.

Scholarly works on sex work and sex workers are mostly confined to discourses on human trafficking and the incidence of HIV/STIs among sex workers. Although crucial, this restricted focus has neglected the reality that sex workers are a diverse community, and while their challenges may appear to be linked at first glance, they differ greatly. While extensive research has been conducted on sex workers working in more open settings like brothels, hotels, and streets, there is a scarcity of research on sex workers working in more private spaces, such as, for instance, their own homes. Within the hierarchy of sex workers, home-based sex workers (HBSWs) among the indoor sex workers dominate commercial sex transactions. However, they are often overlooked due to their covert nature and invisible landscape. This chapter addresses the knowledge gap by examining the work lives and conditions of home-based female sex workers (FHBSWs) in Punjab. The study analyzes the complex lives of sex workers who use their home as both a family unit and a workplace. A detailed analysis of the risks and vulnerabilities they face in their daily lives and their coping strategies is also examined in this chapter. The study points out that although working from home may have positive outcomes for sex workers, the integration of sex work into the home environment exposes them to several challenges. Hence, the study emphasizes the need for tailoring interventions for sex workers who operate in different physical environments so that their unique needs and challenges are well addressed.

Radical feminists position any forms of sex work as gender violence against individuals and more broadly for all women in society. I argue against the ideological stance that sex work is inherently violent and as a result should be outlawed, setting out how this ideology and dogma has allowed structural factors to persist. In this paper, I argue that despite the unacceptable high levels of violence against sex workers across the globe, violence in sex work is not inevitable. Through a review of the literature as well as drawing on research from the United Kingdom, I deconstruct the myth of inevitable violence. In turn I argue that violence is dependent on three dynamics. First, environment: spaces in which sex work happens has an intrinsic bearing on the safety of those who work there. Second, the relationship to the state: how prostitution is governed in any one jurisdiction and the treatment of violence against sex workers by the police and judicial system dictates the very organization of the sex industry and the regulation, health and safety of the sex work communities. Third, I argue that social status and stigma have significant effects on societal attitudes toward sex workers and how they are treated. It is because of these interlocking structural, cultural, legal, and social dynamics that violence exists and therefore it is these exact dynamics that hold the solutions to preventing violence against sex workers. Toward the end of the paper, I examine the UK’s “Merseyside model” whereby police treat violence against sex workers as a hate crime. It is in these examples of innovative practice despite a national and international criminalization agenda against sex workers, that human rights against a sexual minority group can be upheld.

The purpose of this paper is to examine contemporary sex worker labour unionism in a number of major western economies because it now faces an acute historical dilemma of being forced into acting as the antithesis of what it professes and aims to be, namely, elite pressure groups.

Interviews and structured e‐mail dialogues with sex worker union activists were supplemented with an array of secondary sources and documentation, the authors of which are sex workers union activists themselves.

This loss of initial momentum for sex worker unionization projects concerned paucity of human resources, the limited spread of a “sex work” consciousness among sex workers, and ambivalence from potential allies. Consequently, sex worker unions concentrated on engaging in political lobbying on public policy, projects of legal reform of sex work, and helping provide individualized assistance to sex workers inside and outside their worksites on health issues, criminal offences and business matters. Thus, nascent or weakened labour unions in the sex industry acted as pressure groups concerned with work issues in a way in which other pressure groups operate on non‐work issues, thereby forsaking a key characteristic of labour unionism, namely, the focus of collective self‐activity in and on the workplace and from a basis on having a tangible presence in the workplace through membership among workers.

This research is of value to researchers, practitioners and policy makers, for it shows how workers seek collective interest representation through collective means in an environment of “atypical” work and employment.

This paper contributes to a growing body of work studying sex work and sex workers from what can be termed conventional, sociological and organizational behavioural approaches. The result of this is to be able to understand the processes and outcomes of their activities and exchanges as economic and social transactions rather than deviancy.

Drawing upon notions of agency and the body, the purpose of this paper is to examine the nature of agency as a gendered concept through a consideration of women sex‐workers. Specifically, the paper analyses how far women sex‐workers may be regarded as social agents. It then considers how far notions of agency, in relation to sex‐workers' embodied boundaries, may be gendered.

The paper reviews existing literature on sex‐workers and sex‐work practices, looking at indoor sex‐work (massage parlours), outdoor sex‐work (street sex‐work) and trafficking. It considers these types of sex‐work in relation to agency, gender and the body.

The paper acknowledges the diversity of women's experience within different aspects of the sex trade. The paper recognizes claims that treating sex‐workers as “victims” could further jeopardize their social position. However, the paper finds that the “options” available to sex‐workers are severely constrained. Specifically, the lack of capacity among sex‐workers to set embodied “rules of engagement” with clients makes the notion of agency problematic. The paper contends that “agency” is itself a gendered concept not only in relation to sex‐work, but also in the context of women's work more broadly.

Through the idea of agency as a gendered concept, the paper offers alternative ways of exploring agency, the body and women's work.

The paper puts forward the notion of agency as a gendered concept. This opens up possibilities for further research on women's “choices”, and who “makes the rules” within different labour markets.