Sexual Humanitarianism: understanding agency and exploitation in the global sex industry

Project Information

SEXHUM

Grant agreement ID: 682451

DOI

10.3030/682451

Project closed

EC signature date 26 July 2016

Start date 1 October 2016

End date 30 September 2020

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - European Research Council (ERC)

Total cost

€ 1 600 000,00

EU contribution

€ 1 600 000,00

Coordinated by

KINGSTON UNIVERSITY HIGHER EDUCATION CORPORATION
United Kingdom

Periodic Reporting for period 3 - SEXHUM (Sexual Humanitarianism: understanding agency and exploitation in the global sex industry)

Reporting period: 2019-10-01 to 2020-09-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

Between October 2016 and September 2020 the project SEXHUM (Sexual Humanitarianism: Migration, Sex Work and Trafficking) funded by the European Research Council (ERC CoG 682451) studied the relationship between migration, sex work and human trafficking by analysing the understandings, experiences and priorities of the migrants who are directly involved. The project was hosted by Kingston University London (United Kingdom), while Aix-Marseille University (France) was involved as a partner institution.

SEXHUM’s main aim was to produce new emic (subject internal) concepts and data needed to develop innovative theorizations of migrant agency and more efficient and ethical policies addressing migrants working in the sex industry. SEXHUM also investigated the impact of anti-trafficking and other humanitarian and social interventions targeting migrant sex workers on their lives and rights.

SEXHUM met these two sets of aims through the following objectives:

1. gather qualitative data on a stigmatized and under-researched group, migrants working in the sex industry, including sexual minority migrants;

2. develop an innovative conceptual and social intervention framework to address the interplay between migration, sex work, exploitation and trafficking;

3. impact on existing social interventions addressing sex work, trafficking and asylum by producing and disseminating policy recommendations;

4. produce a definition and indicators of what constitutes exploitation in the sex industry that is informed by the experiences and understandings of migrant sex workers;

5. propose an innovative and collaborative ethical framework to study vulnerable populations and disseminate findings including film-making as a form of participative expression.

SEXHUM adopted an interdisciplinary approach bringing together visual anthropology, sociology, gender and queer studies and human geography to study the relationship between migration, sex work, exploitation and trafficking. The project took place in eight cities in Australia (Melbourne and Sydney), France (Marseille and Paris), New Zealand (Auckland and Wellington), and the United States (New York and Los Angeles), which are characterized by different policies on migration, sex work (criminalization, regulation, decriminalization) and trafficking. In order to meet its aims and objectives the project hired 6 postdoctoral researchers for 36 months to conduct fieldwork in each of the 4 national settings of the project. In each of these cities, the research team undertook ethnographic observations of emerging issues and interviewed migrant sex workers to understand their experiences and what needs to be done to improve their situation.

SEXHUM also adopted a creative methodological approach integrating ethnographic observation and semi-structured interviewing with collaborative ethnographic filmmaking (ethnofiction). By writing fictional characters and stories migrant sex workers expressed their experiences of agency and exploitation transcending the distinction between fiction and non-fiction, participation and observation, knowledge and emotions.

SEXHUM’s films were produced and edited in collaboration with associations representing communities of migrant sex workers in France and the United States.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

During the first three months after the start of the project the PI set up an advisory board including people who have sponsored the IRB validation of the project and key researchers and representatives of strategic organisations supporting migrant sex workers in each national setting of the project. The PI also set up a provisional website presenting the main dimensions of the project, its research team and its advisory board.

The successful recruitment of SEXHUM's research team took place across several months (between November 2016 and June 2017) in order to identify and select the most suitable candidates in each site. All but one of the research team members were recruited and started working by March 2017. The Australia-based one started in June 2017.

Each of the 6 researchers completed a period of intensive ethnographic observation (minimum duration of 18 months) and social interaction with the research participants.

Since March 2017 the project focused almost exclusively on data gathering by undertaking both participant observations and semi-structured interviews in all of its 4 national settings. Data gathering was impacted considerably by repressive anti migrant and anti-sex work policies in France, New Zealand and the US, which in turn delayed data analysis and the delivery of some of the planned publications.

Overall SEXHUM’s research team completed 240 interviews, including extra interviews that were undertaken across the four national sites between April and July 2020 in order to understand the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the lives and rights of migrant sex workers.

In addition to ethnographic observations and interviews, the project produced two short documentaries, one in France and one in the US, based on the collaboration with a migrant sex worker rights organizations in each country. This method, which combines documentary and fiction in order to better understand and represent reality, is called ethnofiction.

The findings of the project were published in peer-reviewed articles and policy-friendly reports. The were summarized on SEXHUM’s website and disseminated through the participation of the research team in both academic and broader public events, seminars and workshops throughout the life of the project, as well as through the organization of three online events in September 2020.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

The project SEXHUM (Sexual Humanitarianism: Migration, Sex Work and Trafficking) studied the relation between migration, sex work and trafficking in the global sex industry by analysing migrants’ own understandings and experiences of agency and exploitation.

At its core is the concept of ‘sexual humanitarianism’, referring to the increasing way in which some migrant groups and individuals are understood and targeted by humanitarian concerns, policies and interventions as uniquely and specifically vulnerable in relation to their sexual behaviour, which often legitimises harmful anti-sex work and anti-immigration initiatives.

The SEXHUM research team was able to gather across all of its four national settings the experiences of a great variety of people working in the sex industry, in terms of their ethnicity, area of work, migration, sex-gender identity, class and race. This is a great achievement of the project, which was able to analyse strategically different and comparable experiences of agency and exploitation in relation to sex work and to the impact of anti-trafficking and other humanitarian and social interventions on migrant sex workers’ lives and rights.

Drawing on the great intersectional diversity of our research participants and of their experiences of agency and exploitation, our findings challenge the criteria of victimhood guiding humanitarian and other social interventions, which are characterised by the stereotypically sex-gendered and racialised assumptions. They also critically examine the impact of anti-trafficking and other sexual humanitarian interventions by showing how they often exacerbate migrants’ exploitability in the sex industry and in other labour sectors by misreading their vulnerabilities, ignoring their priorities and limiting their agency.

SEXHUM project official logo