N Mai
Biographic Data
| ID | 16553 |
|---|---|
| NAME | N Mai |
| GIVEN NAMES | N |
| FAMILY NAME | Mai |
| SIGNATURE | MAI N |
| AFFILIATIONS | London Metropolitan University |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-6073-0820 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 29 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 359 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 29 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2003 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 10 |
Stigma Power and the Specificity of Sex Work: An Intersectional Analysis
This concept paper advances stigma power as a central analytical mechanism for understanding how patriarchy, capitalism, white supremacy, and cis-heteronormativity operate with particular intensity against sex workers. Integrating Link and Phelan’s stigma power with Bourdieu’s symbolic violence and Foucauldian productive power, the framework theorises stigma as a mechanism institutionalised through law and enforced by institutions, which produces…
Racialization within Antitrafficking Interventions Targeting Migrant Sex Workers: Findings from the Sexhum Research Project in France
This article draws on the findings of the research project Sexual Humanitarianism: Migration, Sex Work, and Trafficking (SEXHUM), a study investigating migration, sex work, and human trafficking in Australia, France, New Zealand, and the US. In this article, we focus on how racialized categories are mobilized in antitrafficking practices in France. Since April 2016, the French government has enforced a prohibitionist and neo-abolitionist law crim…
Out of Albania: From Crisis Migration to Social Inclusion in Italy
Analysing the dynamics of the post-1990 Albanian migration to Italy, this book is the first major study of one of Europe's newest, most dramatic yet least understood migrations. It takes a close look at migrants' employment, housing and social exclusion in Italy, as well as the process of return migration to Albania. The research described in the book challenges the pervasive stereotype of the "bad Albanian" and, through in-depth fieldwork on Alb…
Caer: Co-creating a Collaborative Documentary about the Lives and Rights of Trans Latinx People Working in the Sex Industry in Queens, NYC
This short article describes the co-creative production process of the film CAER—a collaboration between a researcher/film director and the Colectivo Intercultural TRANSgrediendo: a collective of migrant Latinx trans people in Queens, New York. It shows how the filmmaking process was guided by the concerns of the community, whose members co-wrote the script and took an active part in editing the raw material. The collaboration was born out of the…
Migration, sex work and trafficking: The racialized bordering politics of sexual humanitarianism
The article presents the findings of the SEXHUM project studying the impact of the different policies targeting migrant sex workers in Australia, France, New Zealand, and the United States. It draws on the concept of sexual humanitarianism, referring to how neoliberal constructions of vulnerability associated with sexual behaviour are implicated in humanitarian forms of support and control of migrant populations. Based on over three years of fiel…
Unfinished Decriminalization: The Impact of Section 19 of the Prostitution Reform Act 2003 on Migrant Sex Workers’ Rights and Lives in Aotearoa New Zealand
In 2003, Aotearoa New Zealand (NZ) passed the Prostitution Reform Act 2003 (PRA), which decriminalized sex work for NZ citizens and holders of permanent residency (PR) while excluding migrant sex workers (MSWs) from its protection. This is due to Section 19 (s19) of the PRA, added at the last minute against advice by the Aotearoa New Zealand Sex Workers’ Collective (NZPC) as an anti-trafficking clause. Because of s19, migrants on temporary visas …
Anti-Trafficking in the Time of Fosta/Sesta: Networked Moral Gentrification and Sexual Humanitarian Creep
Globally, sex workers have highlighted the harms that accompany anti-prostitution efforts advanced via anti-trafficking policy, and there is a growing body of social science research that has emerged documenting how anti-trafficking efforts contribute to carceral and sexual humanitarian interventions. Yet mounting evidence on the harms of anti-trafficking policies has done little to quell the passage of more laws, including policies aimed at stop…
Framing the Mother Tac: The Racialised, Sexualised and Gendered Politics of Modern Slavery in Australia
Centred on the slavery trial "Crown vs. Rungnapha Kanbut" heard in Sydney, New South Wales, between 10 April and 15 May 2019, this article seeks to frame the figure of the "Mother Tac" or the "mother of contract", also called "mama tac" or "mae tac"-a term used amongst Thai migrants to describe a woman who hosts, collects debts from, and organises work for Thai migrant sex workers in their destination country. It proposes that this largely unexpl…
Transgender People and Human Trafficking: Intersectional Exclusion of Transgender Migrants and People of Color from Anti-trafficking Protection in the United States
International audience
Community-Based Responses to Negative Health Impacts of Sexual Humanitarian Anti-Trafficking Policies and the Criminalization of Sex Work and Migration in the US
System-involvement resulting from anti-trafficking interventions and the criminalization of sex work and migration results in negative health impacts on sex workers, migrants, and people with trafficking experiences. Due to their stigmatized status, sex workers and people with trafficking experiences often struggle to access affordable, unbiased, and supportive health care. This paper will use thematic analysis of qualitative data from in-depth i…
Mobile Orientations: An Intimate Autoethnography of Migration, Sex Work, and Humanitarian Borders
Precarious Rhetorics
OUR COLLEC TION has come together in the midst of the rise of the global Right.It will likely be received and circulate in a global context wherein this ascendency has been consolidated through an entrenched hard-right populism, marked by xenophobia and racialized social orderings, and characterized by nativist, heteronormative, hypermasculine, and heteropatriarchal leadership styles and structures.Such structures are apparent in the authoritaria…
Mobile orientations: An autoethnography of Tunisian professional boyfriends
Ahmed is a young man working as a ‘professional boyfriend’ in the intimate economy surrounding the tourist industry in Sousse, one of Tunisia’s main tourist destinations on the Mediterranean coast. He and most of his friends and colleagues are also harraga, ‘burners’ in Arabic, a term describing young men burning their documents and yearning for Europe. By performing love to female tourists and by migrating as their spouses, young men in Tunisia …
Too Much Suffering: Understanding the Interplay between Migration, Bounded Exploitation and Trafficking through Nigerian Sex Workers' Experiences
Migrant sex workers' experiences of exploitation depend on a dynamic re-evaluation of the working conditions and relationships that frame their entry into the global sex industry according to the subsequent unfolding of their working and wider lives. Contrary to the essentialist obliteration of consent introduced by abolitionist scholarship and policymaking, migrants can decide to endure bounded exploitative deals with people enabling their trave…
Migration and Social Cohesion: Appraising the Resilience of Place in London
This paper is based on research designed to understand how previous immigrations are perceived/experienced and how this informs the contemporary moment of immigration. We explored the actual lived lives and practices of both new immigrants and long‐term settled populations in six places across the UK. We were particularly interested in layered histories of migration, and historically constituted diaspora spaces, that is, the spaces of multicultur…
The antiAtlas of Borders, A Manifesto”
The antiAtlas of Borders is an experimentation at the crossroads of research, art and practice. It was launched in 2011 at the Mediterranean Institute of Advanced Studies (Aix Marseille University), and has been co-produced by the Higher School of Art (Aix en Provence), PACTE laboratory (University of Grenoble-CNRS), Isabelle Arvers and La compagnie. Since then, it has gathered researchers (social and hard scientists), artists (web artists, tacti…
Embodied cosmopolitanisms: The Subjective Mobility of Migrants Working in the Global Sex Industry
Anti-trafficking rhetoric and policies emphasise the extent of exploitation and coercion of female migrant sex workers and obfuscate the shared ambivalences and contradictions experienced by migrant female sex workers and their male agents and partners. By engaging in the global sex industry, both young men and women negotiate their aspiration to cosmopolitan late modern lifestyles against the prevalence of essentialist patriarchal gender values …
Migration and Social Cohesion in the UK
Based on a flagship research project for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation's Immigration and Inclusion programme, this book argues that social cohesion is achieved through people (new arrivals as well as
The fractal queerness of non-heteronormative migrants working in the UK sex industry
Contemporary debates on migration and the sex industry have been characterized by a marked emphasis on the extent of trafficking and exploitation of migrant women in heterosexist contexts and relationships. Migrant sex workers’ complex understandings of exploitation and advantage have been reductively manipulated into a heteronormative dichotomy between free (male) migrants and (female) coerced victims. In the process, non-heteronormative migrant…
Between Minor and Errant Mobility: The Relation Between Psychological Dynamics and Migration Patterns of Young Men Selling Sex in the EU
This paper analyses the mobility patterns and livelihood strategies of young men migrating to, and selling sex in, the EU. Most of the testimonies come from Albanians and Romanians. The analysis focuses on the experiences of 'street' sex workers, rather than on the whole spectrum of jobs available to young men in the sex industry. I draw on French psychological literature on the topic of errance (wandering) and on original ethnographic material g…
Love, Sexuality and Migration: Mapping the Issue(s)
In our globalised age of accelerating travel and communication, many migrations and other forms of mobility are informed by a variety of emotional, affective and sexual liaisons, attachments and expectations, which can be powerful and necessary motivations for mobility and for the risks taken in crossing boundaries. In some cases, the emotional and sexual motivations involve economic sacrifices; in others, especially for migrants from poor countr…
Italophilia meets Albanophobia: Paradoxes of asymmetric assimilation and identity processes among Albanian immigrants in Italy
This paper discusses what we call the 'Albanian assimilation paradox'. Since arrival in 1991, Albanians have become one of the most 'integrated' of all non-EU immigrant groups in Italy, based on their knowledge of Italian, geographical dispersion, balanced demography, employment progress, and desire to remain in Italy. Yet they are the nationality most rejected and stigmatised by Italians - stereotyped as criminals, prostitutes and uncivilised pe…
Out of Albania: From crisis migration to social inclusion in Italy
Analysing the dynamics of the post-1990 Albanian migration to Italy, this book is the first major study of one of Europe’s newest, most dramatic yet least understood migrations. It takes a close look at migrants’ employment, housing and social exclusion in Italy, as well as the process of return migration to Albania. The research described in the book challenges the pervasive stereotype of the “bad Albanian” and, through in-depth fieldwork on Alb…
Turks' in the UK: Problems of Definition and the Partial Relevance of Policy
This paper unpacks the problematic designation of ‘Turks’ as a migrant group within the context of migration, integration and policy-making in the UK, especially London. Three groups are identified—Turkish Cypriots, Turks from mainland Turkey, and Kurds from Turkey. Their variable experiences of arrival, settlement and socio-economic and cultural integration are documented through a small-scale qualitative study based on in-depth interviews with …
Gendering migration and remittances: Evidence from London and northern Albania
Within the broad and interlinked fields of gender, migration and development, the gendering of remittances has received very little attention. Yet remittances and their use lie at the heart of the migration–development nexus. This paper develops a gender analysis of Albanian migration to the United Kingdom and its impact on source areas, which are mainly in northern Albania. Based on interviews with 26 Albanian migrants in the London area and wit…
Love, Sexuality and Migration: Mapping the Issue(s)
In our globalised age of accelerating travel and communication, many migrations and other forms of mobility are informed by a variety of emotional, affective and sexual liaisons, attachments and expectations, which can be powerful and necessary motivations for mobility and for the risks taken in crossing boundaries. In some cases, the emotional and sexual motivations involve economic sacrifices; in others, especially for migrants from poor countr…
Embodied cosmopolitanisms: The Subjective Mobility of Migrants Working in the Global Sex Industry
Anti-trafficking rhetoric and policies emphasise the extent of exploitation and coercion of female migrant sex workers and obfuscate the shared ambivalences and contradictions experienced by migrant female sex workers and their male agents and partners. By engaging in the global sex industry, both young men and women negotiate their aspiration to cosmopolitan late modern lifestyles against the prevalence of essentialist patriarchal gender values …
Italophilia meets Albanophobia: Paradoxes of asymmetric assimilation and identity processes among Albanian immigrants in Italy
This paper discusses what we call the 'Albanian assimilation paradox'. Since arrival in 1991, Albanians have become one of the most 'integrated' of all non-EU immigrant groups in Italy, based on their knowledge of Italian, geographical dispersion, balanced demography, employment progress, and desire to remain in Italy. Yet they are the nationality most rejected and stigmatised by Italians - stereotyped as criminals, prostitutes and uncivilised pe…
Gendering migration and remittances: Evidence from London and northern Albania
Within the broad and interlinked fields of gender, migration and development, the gendering of remittances has received very little attention. Yet remittances and their use lie at the heart of the migration–development nexus. This paper develops a gender analysis of Albanian migration to the United Kingdom and its impact on source areas, which are mainly in northern Albania. Based on interviews with 26 Albanian migrants in the London area and wit…
Transgender People and Human Trafficking: Intersectional Exclusion of Transgender Migrants and People of Color from Anti-trafficking Protection in the United States
International audience
Anti-Trafficking in the Time of Fosta/Sesta: Networked Moral Gentrification and Sexual Humanitarian Creep
Globally, sex workers have highlighted the harms that accompany anti-prostitution efforts advanced via anti-trafficking policy, and there is a growing body of social science research that has emerged documenting how anti-trafficking efforts contribute to carceral and sexual humanitarian interventions. Yet mounting evidence on the harms of anti-trafficking policies has done little to quell the passage of more laws, including policies aimed at stop…
Community-Based Responses to Negative Health Impacts of Sexual Humanitarian Anti-Trafficking Policies and the Criminalization of Sex Work and Migration in the US
System-involvement resulting from anti-trafficking interventions and the criminalization of sex work and migration results in negative health impacts on sex workers, migrants, and people with trafficking experiences. Due to their stigmatized status, sex workers and people with trafficking experiences often struggle to access affordable, unbiased, and supportive health care. This paper will use thematic analysis of qualitative data from in-depth i…
Migration and Social Cohesion: Appraising the Resilience of Place in London
This paper is based on research designed to understand how previous immigrations are perceived/experienced and how this informs the contemporary moment of immigration. We explored the actual lived lives and practices of both new immigrants and long‐term settled populations in six places across the UK. We were particularly interested in layered histories of migration, and historically constituted diaspora spaces, that is, the spaces of multicultur…
Albanian immigrants in Lecce and Modena: Narratives of rejection, survival and integration
The Albanian exodus to Italy was one of the most dramatic European migration events of the 1990s. Initially welcomed, by the summer of 1991 an intensely negative sociocultural stereotype of Albanian migrants had been installed by certain politicians and the media in Italy. They were condemned as disorganised and prone to criminality; and this stigmatisation became more entrenched as the decade passed. Based on in‐depth interviews and other field …
Too Much Suffering: Understanding the Interplay between Migration, Bounded Exploitation and Trafficking through Nigerian Sex Workers' Experiences
Migrant sex workers' experiences of exploitation depend on a dynamic re-evaluation of the working conditions and relationships that frame their entry into the global sex industry according to the subsequent unfolding of their working and wider lives. Contrary to the essentialist obliteration of consent introduced by abolitionist scholarship and policymaking, migrants can decide to endure bounded exploitative deals with people enabling their trave…
The antiAtlas of Borders, A Manifesto”
The antiAtlas of Borders is an experimentation at the crossroads of research, art and practice. It was launched in 2011 at the Mediterranean Institute of Advanced Studies (Aix Marseille University), and has been co-produced by the Higher School of Art (Aix en Provence), PACTE laboratory (University of Grenoble-CNRS), Isabelle Arvers and La compagnie. Since then, it has gathered researchers (social and hard scientists), artists (web artists, tacti…
The Albanian Diaspora-in-the-Making: Media, Migration and Social Exclusion
Unlike many other groups living and working in Italy, Albanians have not gathered in communities. Moreover, only a minority of them have referred to home or diasporic media in order to recreate and sustain a positive sense of ‘ethnic’ belonging while living abroad. In fact, most Albanian migrants rely solely on Italian public and private television for entertainment and information. On the other hand, but in a sense consistent with the above pict…
Albanian migration and new transnationalisms
This brief paper introduces the special issue of JEMS on Albanian migration, which collects together revised versions of a selection of papers first presented at a conference held at the University of Sussex in September 2002. The uniqueness and complexity of Albanian migration are first spelled out. Although the main focus is on post-1990 migration, some interesting historical precedents are noted. Attention then turns to the two main contexts o…
Between Minor and Errant Mobility: The Relation Between Psychological Dynamics and Migration Patterns of Young Men Selling Sex in the EU
This paper analyses the mobility patterns and livelihood strategies of young men migrating to, and selling sex in, the EU. Most of the testimonies come from Albanians and Romanians. The analysis focuses on the experiences of 'street' sex workers, rather than on the whole spectrum of jobs available to young men in the sex industry. I draw on French psychological literature on the topic of errance (wandering) and on original ethnographic material g…
Turks' in the UK: Problems of Definition and the Partial Relevance of Policy
This paper unpacks the problematic designation of ‘Turks’ as a migrant group within the context of migration, integration and policy-making in the UK, especially London. Three groups are identified—Turkish Cypriots, Turks from mainland Turkey, and Kurds from Turkey. Their variable experiences of arrival, settlement and socio-economic and cultural integration are documented through a small-scale qualitative study based on in-depth interviews with …
Framing the Mother Tac: The Racialised, Sexualised and Gendered Politics of Modern Slavery in Australia
Centred on the slavery trial "Crown vs. Rungnapha Kanbut" heard in Sydney, New South Wales, between 10 April and 15 May 2019, this article seeks to frame the figure of the "Mother Tac" or the "mother of contract", also called "mama tac" or "mae tac"-a term used amongst Thai migrants to describe a woman who hosts, collects debts from, and organises work for Thai migrant sex workers in their destination country. It proposes that this largely unexpl…
Caer: Co-creating a Collaborative Documentary about the Lives and Rights of Trans Latinx People Working in the Sex Industry in Queens, NYC
This short article describes the co-creative production process of the film CAER—a collaboration between a researcher/film director and the Colectivo Intercultural TRANSgrediendo: a collective of migrant Latinx trans people in Queens, New York. It shows how the filmmaking process was guided by the concerns of the community, whose members co-wrote the script and took an active part in editing the raw material. The collaboration was born out of the…
The cultural construction of Italy in Albania and vice versa: Migration dynamics, strategies of resistance and politics of mutual self-definition across colonialism and post-colonialism
This article analyses the shifting ways in which Italy has been strategically represented in Albania during the different key passages of the latter's relatively recent history as a sovereign independent state. As a parallel narrative, the article also examines the way Albania has been equally strategically represented in Italy before and during the two periods in which Italy has been militarily involved in Albania, and the way this has been cons…
Albanian migration and new transnationalisms
This brief paper introduces the special issue of JEMS on Albanian migration, which collects together revised versions of a selection of papers first presented at a conference held at the University of Sussex in September 2002. The uniqueness and complexity of Albanian migration are first spelled out. Although the main focus is on post-1990 migration, some interesting historical precedents are noted. Attention then turns to the two main contexts o…
Albanian immigrants in Lecce and Modena: Narratives of rejection, survival and integration
The Albanian exodus to Italy was one of the most dramatic European migration events of the 1990s. Initially welcomed, by the summer of 1991 an intensely negative sociocultural stereotype of Albanian migrants had been installed by certain politicians and the media in Italy. They were condemned as disorganised and prone to criminality; and this stigmatisation became more entrenched as the decade passed. Based on in‐depth interviews and other field …
The Albanian Diaspora-in-the-Making: Media, Migration and Social Exclusion
Unlike many other groups living and working in Italy, Albanians have not gathered in communities. Moreover, only a minority of them have referred to home or diasporic media in order to recreate and sustain a positive sense of ‘ethnic’ belonging while living abroad. In fact, most Albanian migrants rely solely on Italian public and private television for entertainment and information. On the other hand, but in a sense consistent with the above pict…
Gendering migration and remittances: Evidence from London and northern Albania
Within the broad and interlinked fields of gender, migration and development, the gendering of remittances has received very little attention. Yet remittances and their use lie at the heart of the migration–development nexus. This paper develops a gender analysis of Albanian migration to the United Kingdom and its impact on source areas, which are mainly in northern Albania. Based on interviews with 26 Albanian migrants in the London area and wit…
Out of Albania: From crisis migration to social inclusion in Italy
Analysing the dynamics of the post-1990 Albanian migration to Italy, this book is the first major study of one of Europe’s newest, most dramatic yet least understood migrations. It takes a close look at migrants’ employment, housing and social exclusion in Italy, as well as the process of return migration to Albania. The research described in the book challenges the pervasive stereotype of the “bad Albanian” and, through in-depth fieldwork on Alb…
Turks' in the UK: Problems of Definition and the Partial Relevance of Policy
This paper unpacks the problematic designation of ‘Turks’ as a migrant group within the context of migration, integration and policy-making in the UK, especially London. Three groups are identified—Turkish Cypriots, Turks from mainland Turkey, and Kurds from Turkey. Their variable experiences of arrival, settlement and socio-economic and cultural integration are documented through a small-scale qualitative study based on in-depth interviews with …
Between Minor and Errant Mobility: The Relation Between Psychological Dynamics and Migration Patterns of Young Men Selling Sex in the EU
This paper analyses the mobility patterns and livelihood strategies of young men migrating to, and selling sex in, the EU. Most of the testimonies come from Albanians and Romanians. The analysis focuses on the experiences of 'street' sex workers, rather than on the whole spectrum of jobs available to young men in the sex industry. I draw on French psychological literature on the topic of errance (wandering) and on original ethnographic material g…
Love, Sexuality and Migration: Mapping the Issue(s)
In our globalised age of accelerating travel and communication, many migrations and other forms of mobility are informed by a variety of emotional, affective and sexual liaisons, attachments and expectations, which can be powerful and necessary motivations for mobility and for the risks taken in crossing boundaries. In some cases, the emotional and sexual motivations involve economic sacrifices; in others, especially for migrants from poor countr…
Italophilia meets Albanophobia: Paradoxes of asymmetric assimilation and identity processes among Albanian immigrants in Italy
This paper discusses what we call the 'Albanian assimilation paradox'. Since arrival in 1991, Albanians have become one of the most 'integrated' of all non-EU immigrant groups in Italy, based on their knowledge of Italian, geographical dispersion, balanced demography, employment progress, and desire to remain in Italy. Yet they are the nationality most rejected and stigmatised by Italians - stereotyped as criminals, prostitutes and uncivilised pe…
Migration and Social Cohesion in the UK
Based on a flagship research project for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation's Immigration and Inclusion programme, this book argues that social cohesion is achieved through people (new arrivals as well as
The fractal queerness of non-heteronormative migrants working in the UK sex industry
Contemporary debates on migration and the sex industry have been characterized by a marked emphasis on the extent of trafficking and exploitation of migrant women in heterosexist contexts and relationships. Migrant sex workers’ complex understandings of exploitation and advantage have been reductively manipulated into a heteronormative dichotomy between free (male) migrants and (female) coerced victims. In the process, non-heteronormative migrant…
Embodied cosmopolitanisms: The Subjective Mobility of Migrants Working in the Global Sex Industry
Anti-trafficking rhetoric and policies emphasise the extent of exploitation and coercion of female migrant sex workers and obfuscate the shared ambivalences and contradictions experienced by migrant female sex workers and their male agents and partners. By engaging in the global sex industry, both young men and women negotiate their aspiration to cosmopolitan late modern lifestyles against the prevalence of essentialist patriarchal gender values …
The antiAtlas of Borders, A Manifesto”
The antiAtlas of Borders is an experimentation at the crossroads of research, art and practice. It was launched in 2011 at the Mediterranean Institute of Advanced Studies (Aix Marseille University), and has been co-produced by the Higher School of Art (Aix en Provence), PACTE laboratory (University of Grenoble-CNRS), Isabelle Arvers and La compagnie. Since then, it has gathered researchers (social and hard scientists), artists (web artists, tacti…
Migration and Social Cohesion: Appraising the Resilience of Place in London
This paper is based on research designed to understand how previous immigrations are perceived/experienced and how this informs the contemporary moment of immigration. We explored the actual lived lives and practices of both new immigrants and long‐term settled populations in six places across the UK. We were particularly interested in layered histories of migration, and historically constituted diaspora spaces, that is, the spaces of multicultur…
Mobile orientations: An autoethnography of Tunisian professional boyfriends
Ahmed is a young man working as a ‘professional boyfriend’ in the intimate economy surrounding the tourist industry in Sousse, one of Tunisia’s main tourist destinations on the Mediterranean coast. He and most of his friends and colleagues are also harraga, ‘burners’ in Arabic, a term describing young men burning their documents and yearning for Europe. By performing love to female tourists and by migrating as their spouses, young men in Tunisia …
Too Much Suffering: Understanding the Interplay between Migration, Bounded Exploitation and Trafficking through Nigerian Sex Workers' Experiences
Migrant sex workers' experiences of exploitation depend on a dynamic re-evaluation of the working conditions and relationships that frame their entry into the global sex industry according to the subsequent unfolding of their working and wider lives. Contrary to the essentialist obliteration of consent introduced by abolitionist scholarship and policymaking, migrants can decide to endure bounded exploitative deals with people enabling their trave…
Mobile Orientations: An Intimate Autoethnography of Migration, Sex Work, and Humanitarian Borders
Precarious Rhetorics
OUR COLLEC TION has come together in the midst of the rise of the global Right.It will likely be received and circulate in a global context wherein this ascendency has been consolidated through an entrenched hard-right populism, marked by xenophobia and racialized social orderings, and characterized by nativist, heteronormative, hypermasculine, and heteropatriarchal leadership styles and structures.Such structures are apparent in the authoritaria…
Community-Based Responses to Negative Health Impacts of Sexual Humanitarian Anti-Trafficking Policies and the Criminalization of Sex Work and Migration in the US
System-involvement resulting from anti-trafficking interventions and the criminalization of sex work and migration results in negative health impacts on sex workers, migrants, and people with trafficking experiences. Due to their stigmatized status, sex workers and people with trafficking experiences often struggle to access affordable, unbiased, and supportive health care. This paper will use thematic analysis of qualitative data from in-depth i…
Framing the Mother Tac: The Racialised, Sexualised and Gendered Politics of Modern Slavery in Australia
Centred on the slavery trial "Crown vs. Rungnapha Kanbut" heard in Sydney, New South Wales, between 10 April and 15 May 2019, this article seeks to frame the figure of the "Mother Tac" or the "mother of contract", also called "mama tac" or "mae tac"-a term used amongst Thai migrants to describe a woman who hosts, collects debts from, and organises work for Thai migrant sex workers in their destination country. It proposes that this largely unexpl…
Transgender People and Human Trafficking: Intersectional Exclusion of Transgender Migrants and People of Color from Anti-trafficking Protection in the United States
International audience
Migration, sex work and trafficking: The racialized bordering politics of sexual humanitarianism
The article presents the findings of the SEXHUM project studying the impact of the different policies targeting migrant sex workers in Australia, France, New Zealand, and the United States. It draws on the concept of sexual humanitarianism, referring to how neoliberal constructions of vulnerability associated with sexual behaviour are implicated in humanitarian forms of support and control of migrant populations. Based on over three years of fiel…
Unfinished Decriminalization: The Impact of Section 19 of the Prostitution Reform Act 2003 on Migrant Sex Workers’ Rights and Lives in Aotearoa New Zealand
In 2003, Aotearoa New Zealand (NZ) passed the Prostitution Reform Act 2003 (PRA), which decriminalized sex work for NZ citizens and holders of permanent residency (PR) while excluding migrant sex workers (MSWs) from its protection. This is due to Section 19 (s19) of the PRA, added at the last minute against advice by the Aotearoa New Zealand Sex Workers’ Collective (NZPC) as an anti-trafficking clause. Because of s19, migrants on temporary visas …
Anti-Trafficking in the Time of Fosta/Sesta: Networked Moral Gentrification and Sexual Humanitarian Creep
Globally, sex workers have highlighted the harms that accompany anti-prostitution efforts advanced via anti-trafficking policy, and there is a growing body of social science research that has emerged documenting how anti-trafficking efforts contribute to carceral and sexual humanitarian interventions. Yet mounting evidence on the harms of anti-trafficking policies has done little to quell the passage of more laws, including policies aimed at stop…
Sociology (24 works) · Political science (23 works) · Law (19 works) · Gender Studies (15 works) · Sex work and related issues (15 works) · Migration, Refugees, and Integration (11 works) · Law (10 works) · Sex work (9 works) · Social science (8 works) · Criminology (7 works)