Prostitution Research in Context

"This would be a beneficial purchase for any institution with a robust gender and women’s studies program or scholars taking on the challenge of researching sex work. Also recommended for anyone studying feminist qualitative methodologies since it includes valuable explanations of the importance of these frameworks for research about any historically underrepresented or underserved population."
-Karla J. Strand, University of Wisconsin System

Spanger & Skilbrei reach beyond disciplinary silos in posing novel epistemological questions that push researchers, practitioners, and services providers to reconsider status quo approaches to, and understandings of, transactional sex. By explicitly and fearlessly connecting political and theoretical issues, this edited collection offers a novel empirical contribution to an all-too-often polarized field of research.

Susan C. Dewey, Associate Professor, Gender & Women's Studies, University of Wyoming, USA.

For the first time, we have an interdisciplinary collection of work dedicated exclusively to sex work/prostitution research methodologies. In this inspiring, ground-breaking collection written by a number of key international scholars in the field, editors Spanger and Skilbrei urge us to think critically about the politics, power relations, and positionality in research processes and knowledge production about the sale of sex, and about how we can engage in informed and reflexive (feminist) research practices about the subject. A must read for anyone considering embarking upon sex work research.

Kamala Kempadoo, Professor, Department of Social Science, York University, Canada. Co-editor of Global Sex Workers: Rights, Resistance and Redefinition, author of Sexing the Caribbean: Gender, Race and Sexual Labour.

The study of prostitution appears one of the most ethiclly challenging and contentious areas of research in the social sciences. Avoiding stereotyped representations of this complex and diverse area of study, this edited collection provides a balanced and timely assessment of the way that those researching prostitution are obliged to situate their studies in a wider political and social context. A must read for all those who are researching prostitution, and an important contribution to debates in feminist epistemology and methodology'

Phil Hubbard, Professor of Urban Studies & Head of School, School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research King’s College London.