Policing and public health interventions into sex workers’ lives: necropolitical assemblages and alternative visions of social justice

Grenfell, Pippa; Stuart, Rachel; Eastham, Janet; Gallagher, Aisling; Elmes, Jocelyn; Platt, Lucy; O’Neill, Maggie

doi:10.1080/09581596.2022.2096428

Cited by 7 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 28 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Understanding the stories presented here through the frame of structural violence (Galtung 1990) allows us to understand how sex workers' health is shaped by pervasive and institutional power relations creating unequal health outcomes. The accounts described also reveal how the solidarity of peer networking within and across sex working communities offers the potential to challenge such structures (Grenfell, Platt, and Stevenson 2018).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

‘I miss being honest’: sex workers’ accounts of silence and disclosure with health care providers in Ireland

Ryan

McGarry

2021

Culture, Health & Sexuality

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In this paper, female sex workers tell stories of their interactions with health care providers (HCP) in four cities in the Republic of Ireland. While Irish society has made great progress in listening to the sexual stories of women that were historically silenced (e.g. stories of abortion, sexual abuse), sex workers have not benefited from this new climate. Regularly silenced by parliamentarians and non-governmental organisations who speak upon their behalf, sex workers are consigned within a narrative of victimhood and coercion. This paper draws from a participant action research study conducted in 2019-20 and explores women's motivations in whether to disclose their sex work, and the strategies deployed to conceal it while seeking access to sexual health care. These strategies included traveling beyond their own communities for health care and STI home testing. The paper identifies women, particularly, migrants who felt their precarious position made it impossible for them to be truthful about their sex work to health care providers, exposing them to greater health risk. The paper understands this marginality within a context of structural violence where sex worker health is shaped by institutional power relations creating unequal health outcomes but is also challenged by stories of solidarity.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

‘I miss being honest’: sex workers’ accounts of silence and disclosure with health care providers in Ireland

Ryan

McGarry

2021

Culture, Health & Sexuality

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…[38][39][40] Furthermore, they highlight how oppressive forces that contribute to the disproportionate impact of HIV on racially minoritized and marginalized communities also influence possibilities for these communities, involvement in programmes aiming to challenge these forces. 9,40,41 Peer-led projects for and by communities that have been neglected in mainstream service provision, policy-making, and research are thus likely to require more, not less, resource commitment. Research in the United States highlights how women were less likely to consider taking up PrEP if they had insecure housing, co-occurring health conditions, and caring responsibilities, and more so if health and social care services were offered.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Yet, they also illuminate the often unseen/unmeasured labour of projects led by marginalized communities who lack access to structurally competent services, in contexts of colonial and patriarchal legacies, persisting institutional racism, misogyny, transphobia and anti-sex-worker sentiment, austerity, and criminalization. [38][39][40] Furthermore, they highlight how oppressive forces that contribute to the disproportionate impact of HIV on racially minoritized and marginalized communities also influence possibilities for these communities, involvement in programmes aiming to challenge these forces. 9,40,41 Peer-led projects for and by communities that have been neglected in mainstream service provision, policy-making, and research are thus likely to require more, not less, resource commitment.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Offering payment to all peer mobilizers -or, if adequate resources cannot be secured, payments that can be donated back/paid forward by those who do not feel they need them -could help to improve accessibility to the most marginalized individuals and communities. More extensive prior consultation with a diverse range of sex-worker, trans, non-binary, and migrant communities and organizations -supported by a longer lead-in time and trusted contacts -might help to address concerns about involvement, in the context of sexual health programmes and research that have stigmatized and neglected these communities, 9,40 and connections between (public) health, criminal justice, and immigration systems. 41,43 It is also critical that such projects are sufficiently resourced and flexible to factor in participants' diverse health and support needs, and ideally support access to structurally and culturally competent care while challenging the policies and institutional cultures that restrict such access in the first place.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This will require sexual and reproductive health practitioners, academics, and policy-makers to support communities in challenging the linked social, economic, and political structures that have precluded such funding and projects to date, and that continue to threaten the health and lives of Black women and women of colour, trans women and non-binary people, sex workers, and migrants. 7,[40][41][42] Finally, there is a need to recognize that the productive potential of peer-led sexual and reproductive health projects are not easily reducible to quantitative metrics over short time periods. 21,22 Understanding how such projects can achieve lasting progress requires long-term commitment and community-led qualitative research.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

‘We go where we know’: Reflections from Mobilizing for PrEP and Sexual Health (MobPrESH) – A peer-led PrEP education programme across England, for and by women and non-binary people

Grenfell

Rafael

Calliste³

et al. 2022

Womens Health (Lond Engl)

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Background: Pre-exposure prophylaxis is a highly effective method of HIV prevention but few women know about it, have access to it, or see it as relevant to them. In 2019, grassroots organization PrEPster piloted a peer-led intervention, MobPrESH (Mobilizing for Pre-Exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) and Sexual Health), across three sites in England, to mobilize for PrEP and sexual health with communities of women and non-binary people most affected by HIV, including Black women and non-binary people, people of colour, migrants, and transgender (trans) women. Objectives: We aimed to explore the accessibility, feasibility, acceptability, and ‘fidelity’ of MobPrESH, from the perspectives of peer mobilizers and project staff. Methods: We conducted focus group discussions and qualitative interviews with nine peer mobilizers (most identified as Black cisgender (cis) women) and six project staff (including Black and white cis women and non-binary people). We analysed data thematically, iteratively, and inductively, informed by concepts of reproductive and social justice. Results: We present findings in five thematic areas: connecting and relating to situate sexual health discussions, navigating silence and stigma, connecting within and across communities, competing pressures and structural hostilities, and resources and continuity. Community knowledge-building about PrEP is a slow, iterative process that needs investment and creation of trusted spaces that centre communities’ needs and concerns. Peer mobilizers and the communities they engaged with had competing demands in their lives, and knowledge-raising about PrEP was impacted by intersecting stigmas, discrimination, and oppressions around HIV status, racism, misogyny, transphobia, homophobia, and anti-sex worker rhetoric. Conclusions: Peer-led PrEP interventions require funding and foregrounding, particularly for women and non-binary people who are Black, trans, migrants, and people of colour, situated relative to their wider health needs, life pressures, and priorities. This requires concurrent challenge of the racist and patriarchal structures that continue to obscure the sexual and reproductive health needs of racially minoritized and marginalized women and non-binary people.

show abstract

Vulnerability and Social Control at the Margins: A Contribution to an Interdisciplinary Trialogue on Vulnerability

Brown

2024

Hum Stud

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This paper is part of a special section which brings three different approaches to vulnerability into conversation with one another to foster interdisciplinary co-operation in vulnerability studies. The essay focuses on UK-based applied social science research which centres dynamics of care and social control in how vulnerability is created, experienced and governed, through attention to the voices and perspectives of those deemed vulnerable. Bringing together key themes from a number of empirical studies, the essay provides an overview of theoretical approach on vulnerability, associated research methods including co-production with ‘vulnerable’ people, then draws together insights from the studies and implications for future directions in vulnerability studies. In focussing on lived experiences of those who are socially disadvantaged, disproportionately victimised and at the same time deemed a social problem and controlled in ways that intensify suffering, the essay sets out how social control and marginalisation might usefully be held more to the fore in vulnerability conceptualisations to offer firmer foundations for supporting social justice.

show abstract

Policing and public health interventions into sex workers’ lives: necropolitical assemblages and alternative visions of social justice

Cited by 7 publications

References 28 publications

‘I miss being honest’: sex workers’ accounts of silence and disclosure with health care providers in Ireland

‘I miss being honest’: sex workers’ accounts of silence and disclosure with health care providers in Ireland

‘We go where we know’: Reflections from Mobilizing for PrEP and Sexual Health (MobPrESH) – A peer-led PrEP education programme across England, for and by women and non-binary people

Vulnerability and Social Control at the Margins: A Contribution to an Interdisciplinary Trialogue on Vulnerability

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About