Sex work in the border zone: navigating the margins to reopen the debate

Abstract

Sex work is highly stigmatized. The discourses that are generated around it build negative categories and representations of women, while these discourses are alien to the local context where they are performed. In the following work we intend to approach the transborder zone (Catalonia-France) to explore how this place relates to the phenomenon of prostitution and sex work. Our exploration is a first ethnographic attempt where the complexity and difficulty of addressing the quotidian micro spaces of women's lives is already significant. We find ourselves with the stigma and control of information in the spaces that these women frequent. This implies a vulnerability in their lives, although it also reflects certain mechanisms in which the agency of these women expresses, such as their ability to generate benefits and their knowledge and strategies developed around sex work.