Beyond Liberalism: Marxist Feminism, Migrant Sex Work, and Labour Unfreedom

Cruz, Katie

doi:10.1007/s10691-018-9370-7

Cited by 55 publications

(20 citation statements)

References 42 publications

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“…They convincingly argue why the anti-trafficking paradigm must be contested, root and branch. Katie Cruz similarly mobilises a Marxist feminist critique of the free-forced dichotomy of the anti-trafficking paradigm to map the continuum of unfreedom (Cruz 2018 , 74, 84). I have also already shown how the anti-trafficking paradigm is deeply complicit with sex work exceptionalism such that prising it apart from its unintended consequences is impossible.…”

Section: The Rise Of the International Sex Workers’ Movementmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Sexual Politics of Anti-Trafficking Discourse

Kotiswaran

2021

Fem Leg Stud

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Abstract20 years since the negotiation of the Palermo Protocol on Trafficking in 2000, the anti-trafficking field has gone from an early, almost exclusive preoccupation with sex work to addressing extreme exploitation in a range of labour sectors. While this might suggest a reduced focus on the nature of the work performed and a greater focus on the conditions under which it is performed, in reality, anti-trafficking discourse remains in the grip of polarised positions on sex work even as the carceral effects of anti-trafficking law become evident and the Swedish model of criminalising the purchase of sexual services spreads. In this article, I demonstrate how despite the recent discursive shifts to ‘modern slavery’ and ‘forced labour’, the anti-trafficking transnational legal order itself reinforces, rather than diffuses cultures of sex work exceptionalism. The growing international sex workers’ movement has offered resistance, yet a closer look at the movement and the widespread support that it has garnered for decriminalisation from international organisations, while valuable, helps reveal the greatest cost yet of anti-trafficking discourse, namely, the inability of the sex workers’ movement to produce a sophisticated theory of regulation to reduce levels of exploitation within sex work, one which is commensurate with the informality and heterogeneity of sex markets the world over. Finally, to the extent that neoabolitionist projects derive legitimacy from interventions abroad, especially in the global South, I chronicle the edifice on which it rests in one such context, namely India, to demonstrate how countries in the global South are not merely conduits for the global North’s preoccupation with moral gentrification through neo-abolitionism, but rather, that the circuits of global governmentality while influential, are highly contingent, thus producing opportunities for creative forms of mobilisation by sex workers.

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Section: The Rise Of the International Sex Workers’ Movementmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Sexual Politics of Anti-Trafficking Discourse

Kotiswaran

2021

Fem Leg Stud

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“…36 There are two dominant constructions of`trafficking for sexual exploitation', which is the term now used in the Modern Slavery Act 2015. 37 The first is predicated on notions of consent and individual agency. This liberal approach prioritizes interpersonal coercion and violence and views human trafficking as a human rights violation.…”

Section: Feminist Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 99%

Beyond the Gaze and Well Beyond Wolfenden: The Practices and Rationalities of Regulating and Policing Sex Work in the Digital Age

Scoular

Pitcher

Sanders³

et al. 2019

Journal of Law and Society

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Drawing on the largest study of the United Kingdom online market in sexual labour to date, this article examines the legal and regulatory consequences as aspects of sex work increasingly take place within an online environment. Our research shows that while governmental policy has not kept abreast of these changes, the application of current laws (which have, since the 1950s, focused on public nuisance and, more recently, trafficking and modern slavery) are pernicious to sex workers and unsuited to recognizing and responding to the abuses and exploitation in online markets in sexual labour. These injustices are likely to be exacerbated if policies and policing do not better align with the realities of these markets in the twenty‐first century. This demands a more nuanced regulatory approach which recognizes that people may engage in sex work of their own volition, but which also addresses conditions of labour and criminal exploitation.

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“…This liberal 'consent' based approach, however, fractures the social realities of many workers' experiences, which are uncomfortably forced into the rigid binary of 'free' or 'unfree' labour practices. Within this paradigm, unfree labour is regarded as an exception to the normal functioning of the market, promoting an image of the 'ideal victim' who is identifiable by subjection to force, control and/or deception (Cruz, 2018;Hoyle et al, 2011;Munro, 2005). Conversely, 'free wage labour is viewed as the consensual exchange of non-exploited labour power between equals in response to market forces' (Cruz, 2018, p. 68).…”

Section: Hyper-precarity and The Continuum Of 'Unfreedom'mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Traditionally, ideas of masculinity are linked to the 'breadwinning' male as an active, labouring body or to positions of authority, expertise and knowledge (Conaghan, forthcoming). 'Prison housework' (Zatz, 2008), however, forms socially reproductive work which is often devalued due to its association with 'women's work' which is regularly low paid or not remunerated (Conaghan, forthcoming;Cruz, 2018). The performance of these gendered forms of work may be experienced by male detainees as 'emasculating' forms of work further augmenting conditions of coercion, which is linked to unfreedom.…”

Section: Social Relations Surrounding Experiences In the Sphere Of CImentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This paper focuses on labour within immigration detention in the United Kingdom, offering an original national case study as well as a new conceptual framework for analysing such practices. It does so through an innovative engagement with recent literatures on forced labour, unfreedom and hyper-precarity, particularly amongst irregular migrants (Cruz, 2018;Lewis et al, 2014Lewis et al, , 2015. Though the media have sporadically documented the existence of immigration detainee labour in the United Kingdom (Khan, 2014;Layton, 2009;McVeigh, 2011;Nye, 2014;Rawlinson, 2014;Standoff Films, 2015;Wheelan, 2014), there is very little data on its impact or any thorough academic analyses of the system in practice (notwithstanding a short commentary in Race & Class by Burnett and Chebe in 2010).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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