I am proposing to research international development, human rights, and prostitution. I would like to explain how it became possible that leading development/human rights organizations such as Amnesty International and UN Women began to support decriminalization of sex work as a policy solution in the late 2000s and 2010s.[1] I am studying development and human rights discourses on decriminalization of prostitution. Within those discourses we see sex work represented in the following ways: sex work as “work” and sex work as criminal.
Moreover, there is a discourse that represents sex workers as empowered workers, another discourse where sex workers are represented as victims of trafficking/exploitation and being incapable of consent. Within the discourse of sex work as work there is another discourse that represents decriminalization of sex work as a harm reduction model rather than a means to solely recognize economic freedom. I propose to study this in order to help my reader better understand how the counter discourse of sex work as work became mainstream in development/human rights circles and what are the intersubjective meanings of work, consent, exploitation, and victims. I also hope to help my reader understand what strategies and policy solutions became impossible or possible as this counter discourse became mainstream.
The first source I found has representations of sex work as not criminal. This source doesn’t call for decriminalization explicitly, but it illustrates how those within this discourse were weary of strategies that were punitive in nature. The source I found is a record of an open floor session at a development conference.[2] In the text, sex worker activist Cheryl Overs and NGO workers Meena Seshu and Nandinee Bandhopadhyay discuss what they interpret to be the reasons for why the development industry must move away from representations of sex workers as victims that need to be rescued and rehabilitated. One thing I noticed about this primary source is that those within conversation use the term sex-worker multiple times and distinguish between sex work and trafficking.[3] It could be possible that this text is an example of how sex work is represented in the discourse around decriminalization of sex work as harm reduction. I posit this because there is mention of how the health and economic security of sex workers is jeopardized by punitive measures.[4] There is some mention of consent and sex work as work but the greater concern between the three discussing the topic, is the health and human rights of sex workers.[5]
The second source I found is a blog post from the non-profit Nordic Model Now. The blog post discusses how decriminalization is not a solution.[6] It represents what those in the previously mentioned source would describe as sex work as criminal and exploitative. I identified a few tensions between this source and the other source I mentioned. The blog post discusses that most people who participate want to leave and that those who are usually trafficked are impoverished.[7] The source from the conference also said this however both sources did not share interpretations of why this is the case. The way poverty was discussed in the blog post allowed for the representation of those who partake in sex work to be represented as victims while the way poverty was discussed in the conference recording poverty led to be an explanation for why less criminalization would reduce harm. I assume as I continue to find more sources this tension and others will become more apparent and recognizable. I also think I will be able to better identify where these tensions come from.
[1] “The Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women (GAATW) – The Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women (GAATW).” Accessed November 8, 2019. https://www.gaatw.org/component/content/article?id=754:gaatw-is-statement-on-attack-on-un-research-calling-for-the-decriminalisation-of-sex-work.
[2] Seshu, M. & Bandhopadhyay, N. Development (2009) 52: 13. https://doi-org.proxyau.wrlc.org/10.1057/dev.2008.86
[3] Ibid pg 13-14
[4] Ibid pg 14-15
[5] Ibid pg 14
[6] Admin. “Lies, Damn Lies and Ignoring Statistics: How the Decriminalisation of Prostitution Is No Answer.” Nordic Model Now!, October 1, 2017. https://nordicmodelnow.org/2017/10/01/lies-damn-lies-and-ignoring-statistics-how-the-decriminalisation-of-prostitution-is-no-answer/.
[7] Ibid pg 2-5
Great job describing some of the prevalent strains within this discourse. When thinking about how the policy of decriminalization came to be favored by leading development organizations, I would suggest considering the motives behind the use of various discourses. Organizations like the ones you mention not only have discourses, but they likely have intentionally crafted to them to best serve their own, carefully selected goals (at least the external, public discourses). They are not the same “type” of discourses as meanings that becomes shared by a population of “lay people” about an issue, because the actors in your case have clear goals about the object of the discourse. The discourse (like in the sources you point to here) are made externally and by actors who are purposefully having a conversation or propagating a belief. There is a sense of purpose, direction, and choice within an “external” discourse like that is particularly interesting. Considering the positionality of the actors of your discourse could be a really interesting way to examine your question from another angle. Again, great post!
Thanks Claire for your response! I realize now that I should have explicitly stated what I interpret to be the intentions behind the language used in each primary source. I have some assumptions about the types of policies that the people within these primary sources probably support. I think for the blog post, I think it is safe to say that the author is a supporter of the Nordic Model (the criminalization of buying sex rather than criminalizing those who sell sex). I need to research this discourse more to understand the different strands of thought within the anti-decriminalization camp. That is because there are some areas where pro-Nordic model discourses diverge from the larger discourse of anti-decriminalization. With this information I will be better able to describe a nuanced connection between the language used and the policies promoted. As for the recording of the conference, I am in the process of re-reading that source to get a better understanding of why some of their experiences working with sex workers differ so greatly from those at the non-profit Nordic Model Now. Moving forward I will be taking the extra steps to contextualize the primary sources I find. So that will mean consulting other documents and doing more research. I will say researching this topic has been difficult because discourses intersect often. The discourse among non-profits in the development/human rights sector can be influenced by a lot of “outside actors”. For example, governments, potential donors, activists, and grant awarding organizations can influence why non-profits use the language they do and employ the strategies they do. From my completing some of my preliminary research, I am recognizing how that adds layers to this discourse analysis process.
Thinking about the organizational or institutional position of actors in a discourse is a good idea, but be very careful about thinking that discourses are somehow “intentional” or that they are created in an instrumental fashion by particular actors–that is not at all the case. This is, in fact, a fundamental difference between framing (instrumental, short term, intentional, deployment of rhetoric) and discourse (the deeper set of shared intersubjective meanings that coalesce over time, usually without any clear “cause” or single actor that starts a discourse).
Hey Thamara, I like how you very clearly and succinctly identify the representations in these discourses, as well as their tensions. It’s also really helpful that you have directly defined where these discourses are “located” so to speak: human rights and sex work discourses in the UN and Amnesty International. This might be a really interesting question you could investigate with a genealogy. This would allow you to very productively examine the systems of power and knowledge as you look at how these competing definitions and representations have interacted over time. This is exactly what you seem to be implying when you “propose to study this in order to help [your] reader better understand how the counter discourse of sex work as work became mainstream in development/human rights circles” The shift from a hegemonic discourse of sex work as criminal/amoral to one that was previously a more marginal counter-discourse of sex work as work would be really appropriate for genealogy! If this is what you decide, is there a (wide) period of time you would examine?
(As a side note, Michel Foucault’s “The History of Sexuality Volume I” is a very interesting read that clearly studies a very relevant topic to yours in a manner that penetrates beyond surface level interpretations of what he calls the “repressive hypothesis”. He argues, in part, that sexuality was not simply “repressed” from a mythical utopian and sexually free “ancient Roman or Greek society” (a representation common in our current discourses!) to a sexually oppressive “Puritan” Victorian society. Rather, he claims that sexuality expanded and was in fact proliferated in (and legitimated to some degree by) scientific discourses. He draws a lot of insights from his genealogical study, elucidating on how our understandings of (normative and non-normative) sexualities have changed. He reveals their evolutions from merely understanding them as acts one did – sinful or normative – (ie: homosexuality as “sodomy”) to something we are (ie: people who engage in opposite-sex relations as “heterosexual” and those who engage in same-sex relations as “homosexual”). He refers to this something as something along the lines of creating “species of sexuality”. It is quite a read and might serve as a helpful framework you might follow alongside the Carabine article we read for class as both would illuminate how these contesting meanings are not simply “repressed” or “liberated” but more so accurately “regulated” in a way, and what a genealogy looks like. Sorry for rambling on!)
Overall you have excellent data sources here, Thamara, and a very good discussion of the representations and meanings that are starting to emerge from your reading of these documents. As you think about the overall problem statement and the formulation of the question, remember (from Dunn and Neumann) that questions in this methodology usually take the “how…?” or “how possible…?” form that then points to the specific discourses and representations that are puzzling (e.g. “How was it possible that lone mothers came to be represented as immoral and greedy in 1830s Britain?” to use the Carabine example). The middle part of your problem statement (the part that can be reframed as a research question — “I would like to explain how it became possible that leading development/human rights organizations such as Amnesty International and UN Women began to support decriminalization of sex work as a policy solution in the late 2000s and 2010s”) is still very neopositivist in orientation. How could you reframe this as a “how possible…?” question that points more directly at the meanings and representations that you propose to analyze? Make sure to work on reframing the question and the problem statement so it aligns with the focus of this methodology (studying how shared meanings are constructed, reproduced, and challenged) as you continue your research!