Vicarious Violence: Hurdles and Hinderances to Research on College Student Sex Workers and Erotic Laborers

• In Event: Research Dangerously: A Scholarship of Consequence and Pushing Barriers in Educational Research and Praxis

Abstract

Purpose: As a scholar, I argue that research(ers) should venture into the deepest recesses of the margins to render visible people and populations for whom equity and justice are withheld. The Combahee River Collective (1977) argued “If Black women were free, it would mean that everyone else would have to be free since our freedom would necessitate the destruction of all the systems of oppression.” It is from this perspective I argue for a scholarship in the margins of the margins. That is, within equity and justice discourse when we think we have everything covered this work asks, who is still missing? And why? Sex workers occupy such an invisiblized position, however, working to center them in educational research has been difficult.

Framework: Power-Conscious Collaborative Research (PCCR; Stewart, 2021) is a powerful framework for study with college student sex workers for researchers who seek to engage in collaborative research about their experiences. A total of 6 imperatives across three phases of study compose the framework. Overall PCCR is rooted in sharing a (deficit-free) research process with criminalized and stigmatized populations and illustrates that humanizing and collaborative research with this particular population is possible; despite the view of funders and reviewers who at times mask their disapproval of the work through such arguments.

Mode of Inquiry/Data Sources: Scholarly personal narrative (Nash, 2004) instructs authors to simply tell the truth and to tell it ethically. Beyond “right” or “wrong” designations, the approach asks us to speak to our experiences as we live them and because we are precisely the individuals who know them best. The approach encourages authors to abandon concerns about perceived lack of rigor, but rather re-orients our purpose is to (re)define conceptions of truth focus on honesty, plausibility, situatedness, interpretative self-consciousness, introspectiveness/self-reflection, and universalizability (Nash, 2004). I use SPN and content analysis (Domas, White, and Marsh, 2006) of previous research memos and various documents from conducting this research to make meaning of the elusive way this type of research is hindered in higher education and student affairs research contexts.
Significance/Implications: Despite the relative absence of sex workers from higher education literature (Haeger & Deil-Amen, 2010) these students’ stories deserve to be told, to be uplifted, and to be listened to. The ivory tower is not exempt from perpetuating the violence and respectability mirrored in our society broadly, so I do not expect sex workers to be miraculously supported in ways that they are not supported in our larger society, yet. This topic is new(er) ground for higher education and at present is not a space that is welcoming or accepting of sex workers. As such, my hopes for college student sex worker support may never materialize in higher education. Yet, we must begin somewhere, I share my narrative in hopes others might take on this work or at least, refrain from hindering it. If research can make college student sex work more visible on our campuses, it is a first step in creating structural and strategic change.

Author

• Terah J. Stewart, Iowa State University