A Marxist-feminist approach to improving sex worker vulnerability

该项目将探讨英国性工作者的主观脆弱性经验，以了解这些经验是如何形成的资本主义关系，并评估马克思主义女权主义的理论见解如何能够告知有效的法律的和政策改革确定为可取的性工作者自己。学生将通过马克思主义女权主义理论的透镜进行社会法律分析，资本主义社会关系如何塑造性工作者的脆弱性，并了解他们的自我概念化如何使他们与其他非标准工人的经验保持一致。该项目将以性工作和劳动法领域的现有研究为基础，强调需要将有关性工作的法律的和政策考虑牢固地纳入工作领域。由于性工作者的脆弱性源于迫使工人进入不安全工作条件的法律的环境（Graham，2017年），因此可以认为，纳入主流劳动法提供了合法性、赋权和保护（货车der Meulen，2012年; Lopes，2005年）。在文献中不太流行的是一种批判性的观点，认为性工作的合法性，但承认性工作者的脆弱性是更广泛的资本主义失败的症状，这意味着纳入正规经济的实际利益有限（Cruz，2013）。该研究将建立在这一观点的基础上，通过询问性工作者的主观经验如何构成资本主义引发的不稳定性，以创建详细的帐户，支持马克思主义女权主义者对资本主义的理解，作为压迫关系的框架，包括那些塑造性工作者生活的人，操作（Holstrom，2020）。具体来说，这项研究将发展克鲁兹对存在于劳动不自由连续体上的资本主义（再）生产关系的概念化（2018年，第72页）。通过让性工作者直接参与这一努力，研究将确保马克思主义女权主义理论家建议的更激进的结构改革建议（例如，见Fudge，2014年; Cruz，2013年;和Lindio-McGovern，2020年）得到更多的认可，但性工作者自己也认为这些建议有助于增加他们为有效的政策改革提供信息的潜力。该项目将包括民族志方面（以covid 19的突发事件为前提）以及与学术和政策文献的接触。前18个月（除了研究培训）将用于审查文献，完善研究问题，并与布里斯托的相关慈善机构和组织建立关系，以便在第二年年底进行观察工作。通过采用马克思主义女性主义的方法进行实证性工作研究，该研究将对迄今为止仅在理论上探索的观点做出重要的学术贡献。它将产生强大的概念影响，允许对“自由主义”性工作文献进行实质性的批判性参与，帮助重新构建辩论，以确保脆弱性和剥削的经历，从司空见惯到极端，都与它们产生的更广泛的社会背景联系起来。收集到的详细数据将有助于更好地了解这些脆弱性的复杂性，以便更好地为法律的和政策辩论提供信息。

The project will explore the subjective experiences of vulnerability of UK sex workers with a view to understanding how these experiences are shaped by capitalist relations, and to assessing how Marxist-feminist theoretical insights can inform effective legal and policy reforms identified as desirable by sex workers themselves. The student will undertake a socio-legal analysis, through the lens of Marxist-feminist theory, of how capitalist social relations shape sex workers' vulnerability, and in order to understand how their self-conceptualisation aligns them with the experiences of other non-standard workers. The project will build on existing studies in the fields of sex work and labour law, highlighting the need for embedding legal and policy considerations about sex work firmly within the sphere of work. As sex workers' vulnerability stems from a legal environment that forces workers into unsafe working conditions (Graham, 2017), it will be argued that incorporation under mainstream labour law offers legitimacy, empowerment and protection (Van der Meulen, 2012; Lopes, 2005). Less prevalent in the literature is a critical perspective that believes in the legitimacy of sex work but recognises that the vulnerability of sex workers is symptomatic of wider capitalist failures, meaning incorporation into the formal economy is of limited practical benefit (Cruz, 2013). The research will build upon this perspective by asking how sex workers' subjective experiences are constitutive of capitalism-induced precarity to create detailed accounts supporting the Marxist-feminist understanding of capitalism as the framework within which relations of oppression, including those that shape the lives of sex workers, operate (Holstrom, 2020). Specifically, the research will develop Cruz's conceptualisation of capitalist relations of (re)production existing on a continuum of labour unfreedom (2018, p.72). By involving sex workers directly in this endeavour, the research will ensure that the more radical suggestions for structural change recommended by Marxist-feminist theorists (see Fudge, 2014; Cruz, 2013; and Lindio-McGovern, 2020 for examples) receive greater recognition but are identified as useful by sex workers' themselves to increase their potential for informing effective policy reform. The project will include an ethnographic dimension (subject to the contingencies of covid19) as well as engaging with scholarly and policy literature. The first 18 months will be spent (in addition to research training) in reviewing the literature, refining the research questions and building relationships with relevant charities and organisations in Bristol so that the observation work can be carried out towards the end of year 2. In adopting a Marxist-feminist approach to empirical sex work research, the research will make important academic contribution to a perspective that has only been explored theoretically thus far. It will have a strong conceptual impact by allowing for substantiated critical engagement with the 'liberal' sex work literature, helping to reframe the debate to ensure that experiences of vulnerability and exploitation, from the commonplace to the extreme, are linked to the broader social contexts in which they are engendered. The detailed data gathered will encourage better understanding of the complexity of these vulnerabilities so as better to inform legal and policy debate.