Table Of Content‘Stigma is an occupational hazard for sex workers and their customers throughout
the world. They routinely face prejudice, marginalization, and punitive treatment by
social institutions, the authorities, and the wider public. This book offers ground-
breaking research on key dimensions of stigmatization in various countries, and it also
addresses the preconditions for reducing sex work stigma. A major contribution to our
understanding of this crucial impediment to the health and safety of those who are
involved in sexual commerce’.
Ronald Weitzer, Professor, George Washington University, USA
‘Questioning the “universalised” nature of “whore stigma”, this volume provides
insights from sex workers across the globe. From Germany to Japan, Ethiopia
to Nevada, what is experienced as stigma in different social and legal practices is
scrutinized and further theorised. The book challenges conventional ways of thinking
about stigma, making a significant contribution to the literature’.
Teela Sanders, Director of Research and Professor of Criminology
at the Department of Criminology, University of Leicester, UK
Reconfiguring Stigma in Studies
of Sex for Sale
Reconfiguring Stigma in Studies of Sex for Sale is about the production and effects
of stigma in sex work or prostitution with contributions from four continents and
different disciplines that taken together explore how such stigma is conditioned by
differences in time, place, citizenship, gender, sexuality, class and race.
Stigma is about relationships between people and also sets an interpretative frame
whereby people understand and react to situations and actions, and the book is
developed and organized to investigate this from various angles. It presents empirical
studies that build on and expand the scholarship on stigma and sex work. This means
that it contributes to a more complex understanding of stigma in sex work studies.
Further, by using the example of sex work to explore how we can best understand the
production and consequences of stigma, the book makes a contribution that is rele-
vant for all scholars who work on stigma and stigmatization.
The book is intended for academic audiences interested in sex work or prostitution,
on the one hand, and stigmatization, on the other. It is also intended for students in a
broad range of disciplines, as well as for practitioners and activists who encounter or
work with stigmatization or stigmatized populations.
Jeanett Bjønness is an anthropologist and Assistant Professor at the Center for
Alcohol and Drug Research at Aarhus University. Her main research includes work
on prostitution and sugardating, and aspects of identity, gender and class related to
the exchange of sexual services, as well as young peoples’ identity strategies and use of
medicine and drugs to cope and perform in the educational system.
Lorraine Nencel is Associate Professor at the Department of Sociology at Vrije
Universiteit Amsterdam. She has done research on sex work in different continents and
is an engaged scholar aiming to work together with sex- worker- led organizations to
produce research that support them in their struggles for change. Her book Ethnography
and Prostitution in Peru (Pluto Press 2001) and the article ‘Invisible mobilities: stigma,
immobilities, and female sex workers’ mundane socio-l egal negotiations of Dhaka’s
urban space’ (with H. J. Shewley et al.) in Mobilities (2020) give an idea as to the in-d epth
understandings that can be produced when using participatory, engaged methodology.
May- Len Skilbrei is Professor of Criminology at the University of Oslo, Norway. Her
research interests are mobility, gender and sexuality. She has done empirical studies on
subjectivities in and policy developments on prostitution and human trafficking, and
has together with Charlotta Holmström written a monograph and several articles and
chapters on policy development on commercial sex in the Nordic countries.
Interdisciplinary Studies in Sex for Sale
Interdisciplinary Studies in Sex for Sale is a new and exciting series emphasising
innovative work on the complexities of sex for sale, its practices, the policies
designed to regulate it and their effects. It covers both recent and historical
developments with an aim to explore multidisciplinary and international
perspectives, expand theoretical approaches, and analyse matters which are
the subject of controversy and debate in this field.
We welcome submissions of single and co- authored books, as well as edited
collections that address sex for sale, its practices and regulation, including
those with a focus on: comparative analysis; multi- scalar approaches; meth-
odological perspectives; cultural and economic contexts; and the policies
concerned with the regulation of sex for sale.
This series emerges from, and intends to expand the work of the European
Concerted Research COST Action IS1209 ‘Comparing European Prostitution
Policies: Understanding Scales and Cultures of Governance (ProsPol)’, a
European network funded under Horizon 2020 (www.prospol.eu).
Isabel Crowhurst is Lecturer in Sociology and Criminology at the University of
Essex, UK, and coordinator (Chair) of ProsPol. Her research lies at the inter-
section of sociology, criminology, and critical social policy and centres on the
regulation, social control, and lived experiences of commercial sex practices
and of intimacy. She has researched and published on the regulation of com-
mercial sex and of prostitution-r elated migrations of women in contemporary
Europe. She has good editorial experience having co-e dited four special issues
of academic journals.
Rebecca Pates, Professor of Political Theory at Leipzig University, Germany,
is (co- )director of a number of grants for research projects on the micro-
political regulation of prostitution and trafficking funded by the EU and
the German Research Council. These research projects combined grounded
theory with discourse analysis. She works on theories of the state, political
anthropology and theories of policing. Besides publications on the regulation
of sex work in Germany, she has edited a volume on the social construction
of German ethnicities and is currently working on a monograph on Policing
in East Germany.
May- Len Skilbrei is Professor in Criminology at the University of Oslo, NO,
and Vice Chair of Prospol. She works within the fields of criminology, gender
studies and sociology of law, and does research on the formulation and imple-
mentation of legislation and welfare policies on prostitution nationally and
regionally (the Nordic region) as well as on women’s narratives of human
trafficking. She has published broadly on prostitution and trafficking inter-
nationally. She is also an experienced editor, with four edited special issues to
her name.
Understanding Sex for Sale
Meanings and Moralities of Sexual Commerce
Edited by May- Len Skilbrei and Marlene Spanger
Women Who Buy Sex
Converging Sexualities?
Sarah Kingston, Natalie Hammond and Scarlett Redman
Sex Work and Human Dignity
Law, Politics and Discourse
Stewart Cunningham
Third Sector Organizations in Sex Work and Prostitution
Contested Engagements in Africa, the Americas and Europe
Isabel Crowhurst, Susan Dewey and Chimaraoke Izugbara
Reconfiguring Stigma in Studies of Sex for Sale
Edited by Jeanett Bjønness, Lorraine Nencel and May- Len Skilbrei
Gendered Power Dynamics and Exotic Dance
A Multi- level Analysis
Tina H. Deshotels and Craig J. Forsyth
For more information, please visit: www.routledge.com/ Interdisciplinary-
Studies- in- Sex- for- Sale/ book- series/ ISSS
Reconfiguring Stigma in
Studies of Sex for Sale
Edited by Jeanett Bjønness,
Lorraine Nencel and
May- Len Skilbrei
First published 2022
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2022 selection and editorial matter, Jeanett Bjønness, Lorraine Nencel and
May- Len Skilbrei; individual chapters, the contributors
The right of Jeanett Bjønness, Lorraine Nencel and May- Len Skilbrei to be identified
as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters,
has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs
and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised
in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or
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British Library Cataloguing- in- Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
Names: Bjønness, Jeanett, editor. | Nencel, Lorraine, editor. |
Skilbrei, May-Len, editor.
Title: Reconfiguring stigma in studies of sex for sale / Jeanett Bjønness,
Lorraine Nencel, and May-Len Skilbrei.
Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2021. |
Series: Interdisciplinary studies in sex for sale |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2021014128 (print) | LCCN 2021014129 (ebook) |
ISBN 9781138613065 (hbk) | ISBN 9780367761622 (pbk) |
ISBN 9780429464805 (ebk)
Subjects: LCSH: Prostitution. | Sex-oriented businesses.
Classification: LCC HQ111 .R37 2021 (print) |
LCC HQ111 (ebook) | DDC 306.74–dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021014128
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021014129
ISBN: 978- 1- 138- 61306- 5 (hbk)
ISBN: 978- 0- 367- 76162- 2 (pbk)
ISBN: 978- 0- 429- 46480- 5 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/ 9780429464805
Typeset in Times New Roman
by Newgen Publishing UK
Contents
List of contributors xi
Acknowledgements xv
1 Reconfiguring stigma in sex work studies and
beyond: Putting relationality to work 1
LORRAINE NENCEL, JEANETT BJØNNESS AND MAY- LEN SKILBREI
PART I
Relationality from above 17
2 From social deviant to equal citizen? Stigma and the
decriminalization of sex work in New Zealand 19
LYNZI ARMSTRONG
3 Problematizing the ‘prostitution problem’ in
Ethiopia: The stigmatization of sex workers through
moral discourses and their representations 37
GETNET TADELE, LORRAINE NENCEL AND IDA SABELIS
4 Prostitution and the politics of respectability: Sex work,
stigma and representations of the Other 57
ERIN SANDERS- MCDONAGH
PART II
Relationality from in between 79
5 Sex work activism and intersectionality: The role of
stigma in uniting sex workers 81
MARIE- LOUISE JANSSEN
