Dangerous Sex, Invisible Labor Sex Work and the Law in India
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Prabha Kotiswaran is lecturer in law at the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London.Co-Winner of the 2012 Hart-SLSA Prize for Early Career Academics, Socio-Legal Studies Association "Dangerous Sex, Invisible Labor is a book that deserves respect for its painstaking efforts to present a view 'from below', and to incorporate the voice of the sex worker herself, not only that of the slave but also of the self-employed prostitute-housewife who earns much more than her unsuspecting husband. It provides a wealth of information about the organisation of prostitution and the law in India--a field with many keep-out signs for 'outsiders.' Only a courageous and sensitive researcher can find a way to get in."--Times Higher Education "[F]ascinating and illuminating... Dangerous Sex, Invisible Labor offers a sincere effort in presenting a genuinely contextualized understanding of sex work from sex worker's perspectives, and avoids abstractionist theorizing. This book offers a great thinking ground for readers by creating a remarkably large space for them to do their own theorizing."--Raadhika Gupta, Harvard Journal of Law & Gender "Drawing on perspectives of the sex worker movement in India, Kotiswaran advocates decriminalization of sex work along with self-organization in order for sex workers to realize their rights."--Choice "Kotiswaran's sophisticated and informative theoretical and legal perspective, while occasionally beyond the main boundaries of anthropology, sheds a great deal of light on a difficult and 'invisible' subject, and if it does not decisively point the way, it at least elucidates the contours and contradictions in the 'elusive quest for justice' for women performing sex work."--Jack David Eller, Anthropology Review Database "Kotiswaran's book is a welcome addition to the literature on sex work... [The] book is exceptional in the way that it weaves depth of theory with integrity of field work. Kotiswaran not only leaves the reader with many new thoughts but also makes material feminism and legal ethnography a pleasure to engage with."--Sameena Dalwai, Social & Legal Studies
"Dangerous Sex, Invisible Labor makes a great contribution to feminist theory as it takes on the contentious debate within feminism between abolitionist and sex worker perspectives on trafficking. It offers a clear-eyed, judicious analysis of these positions and that of an emerging middle path, enriched by the insights provided by postcolonial feminism and Kotiswaran's fascinating ethnography on sex work in India."—Sally Engle Merry, New York University
"This book is fascinating, provocative, and likely to change the reader's ideas about sex work in the global south, about sex work in general, and about feminist responses to sex work. In a word, it is brilliant."—Duncan Kennedy, Harvard Law School
"Prabha Kotiswaran maps, in gifted yet poignant ways, the geographies of injustice in the third-world sex trade. Speaking to specific Indian social, political, and constitutional contexts, she fully addresses the obscenity of global sex trafficking, as well as interlocutes all our rather fond human-rights-friendly yet historically effete discourses. Kotiswaran tests and teases new insights arising from taking seriously the voices of suffering women."—Upendra Baxi, professor emeritus, University of Warwick
"A significant contribution to feminist theorization and legal studies of sex work. Taking up the polarized debate about sex work, Kotiswaran powerfully conveys the complexity of sex workers' experiences on the ground. A major strength of her analysis is how it highlights the need to understand the paradoxical effects of legal reform by contextualizing its realization in the web of civil rules, social norms, enforcement cycles, and market forces."—Sealing Cheng, Wellesley College