Abstract
Julie Ham’s book Sex Work, Immigration and Social Difference offers a compelling analysis of the impact of contrasting regulatory frameworks on women sex workers’ agency, security and mobility. Through a comparative analysis of Vancouver, Canada, where sex work is criminalized, and Melbourne, Australia where it is legalized, the book seeks to address three research questions. First, how do the social differences of female sex workers shift across workplaces and borders, and how do such shifts influence spaces for security, mobility and agency in sex work? Second, how is illegality and legality in sex work and migration produced via frameworks of governance? Here, Ham questions how female immigrant, migrant and racialized sex workers negotiate transitions between legality and illegality to ensure their security, mobility and agency. Third, the book explores how sex workers’ security and mobility are affected by agency in collective workspaces. In so doing, we see consideration of how agency in collective environments is enabled or challenged by the regulatory frameworks within which sex work and migration are situated.
Ham utilizes a comparative analysis, incorporating 67 interviews with women who embody or experience dimensions of the group often recognized as ‘migrant sex workers’ to enhance our understanding of how frameworks of governance are navigated, while critically dissecting policy and public perceptions of the ‘migrant sex worker’.
The book begins by situating itself within the broader debates which tend to permeate discussions of the trade in sexual services. Ham interrogates narratives surrounding the migrant/citizen binary and victim/agent dichotomy, in particular noting how non-western migrant women engaging in sex work are often framed as passive, innocent and vulnerable individuals lacking agency and autonomy. This discussion is further substantiated in Chapter 2, where the construction of migrant sex workers and women’s agency within sex work research is examined. The chapter focuses on the ways agency is exercised both in collective work spaces, such as massage parlours and brothels, as well as in the legal and regulatory sphere. Here the theoretical and methodological foundations of the study are introduced, offering an innovative application of intersectionality theory—specifically McCall’s (2005) three intersectional methodologies—to analyse sex work while capturing the heterogeneous identities embodied by immigrant, migrant and racialized sex workers across borders and workplaces.
Prior to reporting her findings, Ham explores the ethical considerations of sex work research, reflecting on the role and influence of her own positionality in fostering trust and reciprocity in the field. Though this fourth chapter makes a logical contribution to the book as a whole, it should be marked as key reading for individuals and organizations conducting research with sex workers and other often marginalized or vulnerable populations.
Chapter 5 employs McCall’s (2005) ‘anti-categorical’ methodology to address the first research question, considering the non-migrant ‘migrant’ sex worker. Ham notes that most respondents in her study were either permanent residents or naturalized citizens, whose practice of trading sexual services involved diverse experiences and conceptualizations of residency and citizenship. Here, the research highlights a disjuncture between official and state preoccupations with work status or legal residency and respondents’ engagement in affective or social belonging and citizenship. Through the ‘anti-categorical’ intersectional methodology, Ham sheds light on how individuals reinforce their practice of affective or social citizenship while occupying a sector in which racialized, immigrant or culturally and linguistically diverse individuals are viewed through a lens of suspicion. The chapter concludes by considering the impact of this on the mobility and security of sex workers as they transition both within and out of the sex industry.
The next chapter examines the use of illegalities and legalities in sex work through McCall’s (2005) ‘intercategorical’ intersectional methodology. The regulatory contours of Vancouver and Melbourne are comprehensively examined from the local to national level, focusing primarily on those frameworks of governance that target sex work and migration. Particularly noteworthy is the finding that the professional knowledges and identities of respondents—in addition to the consequences for their mobility, agency and security—are affected by the regulatory context within which they are situated. For instance, the findings indicate respondents endeavoured to enact licit identities as either law-abiding workers in Melbourne’s legalized system, or quiet citizens in Vancouver’s criminalized industry. Further consideration is afforded to the potential implications of illegality and legality for sex workers whose labour guards against or averts their citizenship.
Chapter 7 examines the professional frameworks utilized by respondents to manage interaction with clients and co-workers in collective workspaces. Though much research demonstrates collective working environments can enhance sex worker safety, Ham seeks to address the often neglected question of how sex workers work collectively. In so doing, two means of understanding the management of relationships in the workplace are identified. First, Ham offers a typology of three contrasting approaches, identifying how respondents construct and experience their co-workers so as to manage their own labour and understand the industry more generally. The ‘protective approach’ captures those who view colleagues and others engaging in sex work as risks that require management, while the ‘professionalism approach’ refers to those who acknowledge that other sex workers can be of value, but who maintain a degree of caution, citing factors such as competition and risk. By contrast, the ‘solidarity approach’ applies to individuals who conceptualize co-workers as allies. Ham continues to identify a second framework to facilitate an understanding of the management of relationships in collective environments. This considers sex workers’ active management and performance of ethnicity, nationality and race within the workplace to optimize income and construct a desired workspace.
The book concludes in Chapter 8, which considers how the governance and regulation of sex work and migration produce and shape professional identities for racialized, migrant and immigrant sex workers. Ham explores how these identities are negotiated through the grounded experiential knowledge shared among sex workers. A subsequent discussion reifies the empirical, practical and theoretical contributions of the book, placing particular emphasis on the need for continued efforts to address the disjuncture between the lived realities of sex work and its social stereotypes. Doing so highlights the applicability of this book to a range of actors including policy-makers, practitioners and academics. Indeed, the contributions of this book offer much to ongoing international debates on the governance and regulation of those who trade sexual services.