Sex Work and the Politics of Space: Case Studies of Sex Workers in Argentina and Ecuador

Jessica Van Meir
2017 Social Sciences  
While many studies examine how different legal approaches to prostitution affect sex workers' living and working conditions, few studies analyze how sex workers' physical workspaces and the policies regulating these spaces influence sex work conditions. Based on interviews with 109 current or former sex workers, 13 civil society representatives, 12 government officials, and 5 other actors in Ecuador and Argentina, this study describes sex workers' uses of urban space in the two countries and
more » ... pares how they experience and respond to government regulation of locations of prostitution. Argentina and Ecuador took different approaches to regulating sex work space, which appear to reflect different political ideologies towards prostitution. Sex workers expressed different individual preferences for spaces, and government limitation of these spaces represented one of their major concerns. The results illuminate how sex workers' workspaces influence their working conditions and suggest that governments should consider sex worker preferences in establishing policies that affect their workspaces. Why did the governments of Quito and Buenos Aires close these businesses, and why did sex workers care so much? What do these sex workers' reactions to the closures reveal about how sex workers relate to their workspaces? Conflict over sex work in Western academic and political discourse normally centers on the legality of prostitution, producing fierce debates among policymakers and feminists about how different policy approaches to prostitution might impact the individuals in prostitution and gender relations within society. 1 The abolitionist approach argues that prostitution is inherently exploitative and embodies the ultimate form of male dominance over women, and therefore feminists should aim to eliminate the existence of prostitution by criminalizing the purchase of sex [5] [6] [7] [8] . The sex workers' rights approach, however, criticizes this "oppression paradigm" [9] and argues that prostitution is a legitimate form of work and should be legalized or decriminalized [10] [11] [12] [13] . 2 With this focus on the legality of prostitution, however, less research examines the effects of more specific policies regarding prostitution on sex work conditions in places where it is legal, and Weitzer [15] identifies the conditions of legal prostitution as an under-researched topic. While there is a growing body of research in this area, for instance in New South Wales (NSW), Australia and New Zealand [4, [16] [17] [18] , more research on the conditions within different contexts of legal sex work is warranted, particularly in developing countries. Because sex work is legal in Argentina and Ecuador, but brothels are illegal in Argentina and legal in Ecuador, these two countries provide the opportunity to examine how sex workers experience different policy approaches to legal sex work. In interviews on the working conditions they face, sex workers in both countries expressed great concern with policies that limited their workspaces. This concern suggests sex workers' relationship to space as an important topic of exploration. Most of the studies that explicitly identify space as an important component of sex work focus on mapping the geographies of sex work and examining how sex workers' responses to law enforcement and their environments construct the locations of sex work within cities [19] [20] [21] [22] [23] [24] . Through case studies of sex work in Argentina (primarily in Buenos Aires) and Ecuador, this study will focus on the types of spaces sex workers use in urban environments, adding to the emerging literature on the "micro spaces (sites and arenas) and strategies" used by sex workers ([4,17,18]; [25], p. 151). Different types of spaces used by sex workers offer different working conditions. For instance, street-based sex workers are consistently found to experience more victimization than indoor sex workers [15, 18] . Street-based sex work, however, may provide sex workers more autonomy and earnings than indoor managed spaces like brothels [4] . This paper seeks to expand the body of knowledge on sex workers' feelings about the spaces in which they work, how they decide where to work, and how policies regulating these spaces affect the conditions they face. Given the potential influence of sex workers' workspaces on their working conditions, this study examines how government regulation of these spaces impacts sex workers' qualities of life. Furthermore, it analyzes how governments' political ideologies towards prostitution shape their regulation of these spaces and how sex workers respond to government controls.
doi:10.3390/socsci6020042 fatcat:5b32qk5prre5nmc7iksc7bf5nm