Returning to sexual stigma: post‐trafficking lives

Abstract

This article is concerned with returning to sexual stigma in two key respects. First, it prompts a return to the conceptual understanding of sexual stigma and makes an important contribution to critiques of the individualized frameworks that have dominated much of the literature on stigma to date, through a critical analysis of sexual stigma as a collective process at different scales and locations. Second, using empirical data from a qualitative study of post‐trafficking experiences of women in Nepal as a case study to develop theoretical understandings of the production of stigma, it explores modalities of sexualized stigma encountered on return from trafficking situations. Within the trafficking literature there has been very little attention to what happens after trafficking. This article addresses this gap in focusing on lives post‐trafficking and, in addition, contributes to the limited research on trafficking in Nepal.

Geographies of stigma: Post‐trafficking experiences

“…We focus specifically on territorialisation, spatial differentiation, and scalar hierarchies. Elsewhere, in a companion piece, we examine sexual stigma sociologically, drawing on Goffman (1990) and more recent work on the sociology of stigma (e.g., Link & Phelan, 2001; Scambler, 2009; Tyler & Slater, 2018) to examine the modalities of sexualised stigma in these settings (Richardson & Laurie, 2019). Recent sociological work has sought to reconceptualise stigma by critiquing the individualistic frameworks that have dominated much of the literature since Goffman’s classic work.…”

“…Our theoretical approach contributes to and extends contemporary critiques of stigma research. We provide a critical rethink of the concept of sexual stigma in developing a social, cultural, and political analysis of how intersecting modalities of stigma are reproduced in the process of returning from trafficking situations (Richardson & Laurie, 2019). In our analysis of “markers of doubt” which place women at risk of being stigmatised, we identify four key aspects: family and community response, the “rescue process,” the role of marriage, and embodied stigma connected to national border politics.…”

“…As we have shown elsewhere for the context of Nepal, this leaves little room for those who have experienced trafficking to have much say over the manner in which they return. They are often “outed” as having been trafficked in the process, despite the fact that many wish to conceal this “fact” (Laurie et al., 2015a, 2015b; Richardson & Laurie, 2019). Such findings underline those of Dhakal Adhikari and Turton (2019), also working in a Nepal setting, who argue that trafficking vulnerabilities need to be understood as part of a continuum rather than a one‐off event.…”

“…We see post‐trafficking more broadly as referring to the processes and practices associated with leaving trafficking situations, whether these be as a result of internal trafficking in one’s own country or because of trafficking experiences that involved crossing international borders (Laurie et al., 2015a). We have therefore sought to extend the conceptual understandings of post‐trafficking to recognise that the experience of trafficking can be distinct at different points of return; it can involve returning “home” or not, embracing a range of scenarios where state and non‐state interventions mean that “return” to countries and places of origin are sometimes not an option (Richardson & Laurie, 2019).…”

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

“…contributing to the (re)conceptualisation of stigma "as a social process dependent on meaning-making through social interaction, demanding cultural understanding of visible 'markers' of stigma and of doubt or suspicion that place a person at risk of attribution to a stigmatised identity" (2019, p. 2). Beyond their critical intervention on stigma Laurie and Richardson (2019) also draw attention to the spatialities of negotiation and manoeuvring in life after trafficking.…”