Systemic Violence, Social Harms and Necropolitics: The Interaction of Prison and Life 'On Road' for Women Engaged in Sexual Commerce in East London.

• In Event: Rethinking Victimization Among the Most Marginalized

Abstract

This presentation will consider victimisation by the state of a group of acutely marginalised and criminalised women embedded in street-based informal economies organised around sex work and whose lives are marked by violence, drug addiction and imprisonment. It draws on theories of systemic violence (Žižek 2008; Ruggerio 2020), social harms (Pemberton, 2015; Canning &Tombs, 2021; Hall et al., 2020), and Mbembe’s (2019; 2003) necropolitics to demonstrate the multiple, multi-layered social harms experienced by the women interviewed. In a research project for Doctors of the World UK (Stuart and Grenfell, 2021) twenty-nine women were interviewed about their health and service needs on the street, where they slept, lived, and worked, by a research team who had engaged with them for several years. The original data was re-analysed by a wider team to tease out a panoramic view of the social harms and systemic violence they experienced.The re-analysis established the multi-generational nature of the trauma many participants experienced and how it inter-related with drug use, violence, sex work and imprisonment to contribute to acute marginalisation resulting in ever increasing levels of systemic violence, stigma and social harm. In particular, we draw on participants’ experiences of the carceral continuum, both positive and negative, to demonstrate the extent to which they are excluded from and denied the benefits of societal inclusion.

Authors

• Rachel Stuart, Brunel University

• Kate O´Brien, Department of Sociology, Durham University, UK

• Caroline Chatwin, University of greenwich

• Pippa Grenfell, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine