Old profession, new economies
Karin Persson Strömbäck, School of Public Administration, University of Gothenburg
Ida Kock, Department of Culture and Media Studies, University of Umeå
What type of labour prostitution should be defined as, and if it is to be considered labour at all has been heavily debated. In this paper we wish to shift focus. Rather than engaging in the debate on whether commercial sex should/can be perceived as a legitimate form of labour, we wish to study sex sellers economic participation and relate this to transformations in the economy and labour markets over recent years. By doing so, we wish to situate sex work within this modern day service economy, focusing on the interrelatedness of sex work and other types of precarious work.
Indeed, policy actors have construed and engaged in constructing prostitution and prostitution related migration in various ways, ranging from perceiving and promoting it as an issue of border related security and gender inequality in destination countries, to underdevelopment and poverty, lack of migration opportunities, and the exclusion of migrant women from debates on women’s rights in countries of origin.
Further studies have sought to demonstrate how increased economic internationalization combined with a shift from production to services in a post-fordist economy has generated a growing number of women working in a clandestine, cash based economy, who are frequently involved in affective, or intimate labour such as child care and domestic services.
In this paper, we will draw on ethnographic data of sex sellers in Sweden in order to study how, and if, sex work is being framed as work and the inclusion/exclusion from the regular labour market.
