Abstract

Sex work as paid care work is seldom taken into account in care movements as well in academic care research and, when it is, is vehemently discussed due to the monetary compensation involved. On account of the involved remuneration, representatives of the care movement that argue normatively and ethically are critical of considering sex work as care. This intermediate space, which is the subject of considerable public debate but has up to now been scarcely systemically investigated in cultural-anthropological and gender-theoretical care research, is the focal point of this ethnographic and cultural-analytic dissertation proposal. It researches sex work in the context of sexual, intimate, physical and emotional care work and enables a shift in perspective in gridlocked debates on sexuality by setting the focus of this proposed research project on an actor-centered perspective. It inquires thereby how actors engaged in sex work experience their occupation and care in the context of sexuality, intimacy and emotionality with regard to both productive as well as reproductive labor. This offers insight into 1) the perspectives, experiences and capacities for action of the actors, who are subjected to multiple discriminations, and indicates their connections with neoliberal and neocolonial transformation processes and the accompanying differentiation and exclusion process in order to 2) further examine linkages and negotiations of legitimate work, precarious work, lucrative and caring work. It further enables insight into 3) how a caring, collaborative alliance can achieve translational contributions and, with the concept of un_learning, intervene in and change sociopolitical discursive and representational fields.

Supervision: Priv.-Doz. Mag. Dr. Gilles Reckinger (Karl-Franzens-Universität Graz) und Prof. Dr. Sabine Hess (Georg-August-Universität Göttingen)

Affiliation: Department of Cultural Anthropology and European Ethnology (KFU Graz), Georg-August University of Göttingen and Centers for Global Migration Studies (CeMIg), Gesellschaft Sexarbeits-und Prostitutionsforschung (GSPF) (Society for the Research of Sex Work and Prostitution); 

From June 2025 to October 2025 Local Junior Fellow of the Elisabeth List Fellowship Program 

Since October 2024 ifk Junior Fellowship Internationales Forschungszentrum Kulturwissenschaften (International Research Center for Cultural Studies)