Hybrid governance and competing agendas
Analysing anti-trafficking approaches in urban India
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 19214293 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Jaffer Latief Najar (0000-0003-1805-6793, International Institute of Social History, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Volume | 173 |
| Pages | 104675-104675 |
| Publication date | 2026-04-21 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Geoforum (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0016-7185 • E-ISSN: 1872-9398 |
| Publisher | Elsevier BV (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1016/j.geoforum.2026.104675 |
| OpenAlex | W7155052916 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 28 |
This article develops attention to the local dynamics and hybrid form of anti-trafficking governance by focusing on multiple governing actors in Sonagachi, Kolkata, India. Sonagachi is one of the largest urban sex work neighbourhoods in Asia/India and is a prime location for involvement of several anti-trafficking actors such as Street-level Bureaucrats, (I)NGOs, and Community Led Collectives. This article discusses how street-level bureaucrats collaborate with national and international NGOs and other actors to govern human trafficking, notwithstanding the ensuing difficulties for the individuals targeted and for consenting adult sex workers. The article also describes a self-regulatory governance approach developed by the sex worker community in response to ongoing anti-trafficking governance collaboration between government and (I)NGOs. This approach and, particularly, its ground-up participatory governance, has contributed to shape the lives and conditions of migrant sex workers in Sonagachi. While this localized hybrid governance offers certain advantages, such as enabling and accommodating community-led regulation and initiatives, amid criminalization of sex work, it remains constricted by legal ambiguity, ideological contestation, and uneven power relations as well as social hierarchies. The findings underlines that hybrid governance does not put an end to structural susceptibilities, socio-economic hierarchies and power relations but regularly reproduces them, particularly along lines of caste, class, religion, political interests/ideologies, and migration status, thereby continuing the marginalization of sex workers within broader social, political, and legal landscapes
Corporate governance · Government (linguistics) · Urban planning · Urbanization · Global trade, sustainability, and social impact · Sex work and related issues · Social and Economic Development in India
Analysis of Personal Narratives
Human Trafficking, Globalization, and Transnational Feminist Responses
The International Politics of Human Trafficking
Governance as theory
Of Raids and Returns
Governance as a conceptual development in the analysis of policy
Policing “conjugal order”
A tale of two cities
Now You See Her, Now You Don’t
Hybrid Governance Arrangements
How ‘just’ is hybrid governance of urban nature-based solutions
Brahmanical patriarchy and the politics of anti-trafficking and prostitution governance
Governing urbanism
The Multiple Sites of Urban Governance
Street-Level Bureaucracy
Cross-sectoral collaboration in the pursuit of social change
Hybrid Governance in Northeastern Mexico
Dealing with disgust
The New Governance
Governance to Governmentality
The Strength of Weak States? Non-State Security Forces and Hybrid Governance in Africa
Trajectories of Hybrid Governance
Can sex workers regulate police? Learning from an HIV prevention project for sex workers in southern India
Performance, Reflexivity, and Learning Through Biographical-Narrative Research
Sovereign Silence
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |