Living with the Other: Street sex work, contingent communities and degrees of tolerance

Abstract

There is substantial literature on how fears of Other populations are prompting the increased surveillance and regulation of public spaces at the heart of Western cities. Yet, in contrast to the consumer-oriented spaces of the city centre, there has been relatively little attention devoted to the quality of the street spaces in residential neighbourhoods beyond the central city. In this article, we explore how media representations of sex workers as an abject and criminalized Other inform the reactions of residents to street sex work in such communities. Drawing on our work in a number of British cities we highlight the different degrees of tolerance which residents express towards street sex work. In light of the Home Office strategy document, A Coordinated Prostitution Strategy, this article concludes by advocating participatory action research and community conferencing as a means of resolving conflicts and assuaging fears of difference

‘It’s better than daytime television’: questioning the socio-spatial impacts of massage parlours on residential communities

“…Kantola and Squires (2004) frame impacts into nuisance or moral discourses, with environmental nuisance (more associated with on-street sex work) including litter and noise (Benson and Matthews, 2000), fear of going out after dark, or being mistaken for sex workers/clients (Kingston, 2013;O'Neill et al, 2008), and criminality ranging from public urination to sexual crimes . Historical fears of contracting venereal disease from discarded condoms in public spaces, or clients infecting non-sex worker populations (Whittaker and Hart, 1996) still pervade certain stereotypes about sex work now (Desyllas, 2013).…”

A construção mediática do tráfico de seres humanos na imprensa escrita portuguesa

“…Em síntese, da análise da produção científica desenvolvida no domínio do TSH realça-se que o discurso da imprensa exibe traços de uma cobertura mediática que fomenta o pânico moral (Berman, 2003;Cohen, 1972;O'Neill, Campbell, Hubbard, Pitcher, & Scoular, 2008;Saar, 2010;Schaeffer-Grabiel, 2010;Simões & Peça, 2009;Weitzer, 2007) e o preconceito, sobretudo através da catastrofização das estatísticas relativas ao fenómeno e da amplificação da participação de estrangeiros e minorias em situações de desvio.…”

“…Paralelamente, os significados discursivos arquitectam a opinião pública, não sendo o discurso jornalístico uma excepção, apesar da sua presunção de imparcialidade ou isenção. De facto, para além da sua função informativa, ao descrever os problemas de forma selectiva, exagerada e obscura (Saar, 2010), os media assumem um papel central na criação de cenários de pânico moral, com impacto ao nível do fortalecimento de políticas migratórias restritivas (O'Neill et al, 2008) e da ideologia abolicionista face à actividade prostitutiva.…”

The representation of sex workers in South African media: Danger, morals and human rights

“…McLaughlin 1991;Hallgrimsdottir, Phillips and Benoit 2006;O'Neill, Campbell, Hubbard, Pitcher and Scoular 2008;Coy, Wakeling and Garner 2011). Grjebine (1987) claims that greater media coverage of sex workers' living and working conditions has reduced some of the more serious abuses against them, although it is acknowledged that coverage was sometimes sensationalised.…”