Relational geographies of human trafficking: Inequality, manoeuvring and im/mobility across space and time

Abstract

This paper demonstrates why and how a fuller geographical perspective extends contemporary scholarship on human trafficking within and beyond the discipline.We employ a relational approach and draw on in-depth qualitative research with trafficked persons and a range of stakeholders in Slovakia and the United Kingdom (UK), to depict how the processes underpinning human trafficking are nonlinear and operate instantaneously at multiple intersecting scales and temporalities and through diverse mobilities. The analysis problematises the discrete and homogeneous notion of space coupled with a linear conceptualisation of time and, more specifically, the normative portrayals of recruitment, transit and exploitation as distinct and sequential phases of human trafficking. Instead, the individuated experiences of trafficked persons are examined in relational geographies of inequality, manoeuvring and mobilities. Such a conceptual shift ensures that efforts to understand and combat human trafficking address its effects as well as the wider social relations and structural conditions that facilitate exploitation. We conclude the paper by outlining how a relational-geographic perspective has the potential to foster new forms of dialogue and inquiry within and beyond the discipline. K E Y W O R D SEastern Europe, exploitation, human trafficking, inequality, mobilities, relational geographies 1 | INTRODUCTION Human trafficking is inherently spatial, comprising cross-cutting processes of exploitation within and across local, regional, national and international borders. Yet, academic, policy and media understandings of human trafficking tend to rely on a discrete and homogeneous conceptualisation of space coupled with a linear conceptualisation of time (Smith, 2017). Our aim in this paper is to contribute to critical debates over structural inequalities that underpin human trafficking (Anderson & Ruhs, 2010;Andrijasevic, 2010;Lewis et al., 2015;Piper et al., 2015) by offering a geographical conceptualisation of human trafficking that explicitly recognises the relational nature of space and time. Using in-depth qualitative research with trafficked persons and a range of stakeholders in Slovakia and the United Kingdom (UK), we examine why viewing processes such as recruitment, transit and exploitation as distinct and sequential phases of the human trafficking process is reductive. In turn, we reframe human trafficking as a relational composition that spans multiple spaces and temporalities.The paper is structured as follows. First, we outline relational perspectives on human trafficking within critical inter-disciplinary scholarship and suggest that this could be enriched by engaging explicitly with relational conceptions of space (and time). Second, we introduce the writings of Massey, Bergson and Deleuze and present the theoretical framework for ---

Geographies of stigma: Post‐trafficking experiences

“…Many of the long‐held assumptions about human agency and what the full picture of migration over time looks like are being challenged by a growing interest in immobility in different contexts (Black, 2013; Blazek et al., 2019; Champion & Falkingham, 2016; Skeldon, 2016). This work calls attention to the diverse reasons why people do and do not move in different contexts, as well as to the dynamic, complex web of social, economic, and political circumstances under which immobility takes place.…”

“…In a similar vein, Blazek et al. (2019) also make the case for disrupting the spatial categorisation of trafficking into different temporal phases. They argue that “viewing processes such as recruitment, transit, and exploitation as distinct and sequential phases of the human trafficking process is reductive” (Blazek et al., 2019, p. 63).…”

Prefiguring stigma in post‐trafficking lives: Relational geographies of return and reintegration

“…While relational geographies have illuminated a broad range of issues over the past decade, it has only belatedly been proposed as relevant in understanding human trafficking. Blazek et al (2017) have argued that, "reframe[ing] human trafficking as a relational composition that spans multiple spaces and temporalities" (p. 63) enables researchers to consider "how the processes underpinning human trafficking are non-linear and operate instantaneously at multiple intersecting scales and temporalities and through diverse mobilities" (p. 63). Thus, relational geographies complicate and problematise neat linear characterisations of human trafficking as involving sequential stages of recruitment, movement/deployment, and exploitation operating in fixed and clearly demarcated places and isolated from each other in favour of an approach that proposes a dynamic and co-constitutive relationship between different temporalities and geographies.…”

The Use of Spatial Statistics to Control Human and Sex Trafficking

“…The use of spatial statistics by criminal justice practitioners is part of an approach and methodology known as the geography of crime, and Georges defines it as "the study of the spatial manifestation of criminal acts" [25]. The social, economic, and cultural attributes of places and spaces affected by human trafficking can be complex, and according to Blazek, Esson, and Smith [4], "space is made through the practices that have already taken place and it will be modified by those that are only due to materialize." Some of these practices can be officially documented as socio-economic variables and data recorded by government agencies.…”

“…Since place and space and the attributes of them, in many ways, reveal sex and human trafficking's dynamics, spatial statistics and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) can assist sociologist, criminologists, social workers, and psychologists in their quest of finding solutions to this problem. Blazek, Esson and Smith [4] provide a description of human trafficking that stresses the "inherently spatial" Manuscript nature of an abusive activity that includes "cross-cutting processes of exploitation within and across local, regional, national, and international borders. " Moore [5] encourages educators to work with their students in the development of research questions pertinent to human trafficking that can be answered by using GIS technologies since these spatial analysis-related technologies "can map the spatial distribution of trafficking activity."…”