Periodic Reporting for period 1 - CosmopolitanCare (On the frontiers of public health. Care for refugee sex workers in Paris as a case of internationalization of cities.)
Okres sprawozdawczy: 2019-06-01 do 2022-05-31
“Why don’t Nigerian sex workers mobilize on the public problem of prostitution in Paris? When and how do they self-define as victims of human trafficking? To what extent do cities encourage experimental practices of care that can’t be confined to the taken for granted abolitionist/regulamentarist divide?: these are the questions guiding the research project “CosmopolitanCare - On the frontiers of public health. Care for refugee sex workers in Paris as a case of internationalization of cities”.
Prostitution and its relationship with human trafficking has always constituted a moral and political issue challenging national welfare and justice systems. Despite this, both research and policymaking confine their analysis to the abolitionist/regulamentarist divide. Cosmopolitancare is a three-year experimental project that (a) focuses on migrants’ experiences of the public problem of prostitution; (b) investigates the role of cities in the context of the European current transition towards post-national welfare and healthcare systems; (c) considers the re-actualization of pragmatism, with its methods of investigation and experimentation, as the most appropriate horizon for really investigating the experiences of persons in situation of prostitution.
Research objectives are: (a) to generate a frontier perspective on cities, welfare and migration; (b) to investigate the consequences of stigma in different modes of interventions on migrant and refugee sex workers’ welfare problems; (c) to experiment a people-centered methodology for the evaluation of the accountability of interventions under observation; (d) to establish a series of policy recommendations that will be of value to urban policy across EU.
Prostitution and its relationship with human trafficking has always constituted a moral and political issue challenging national welfare and justice systems. Despite this, both research and policymaking confine their analysis to the abolitionist/regulamentarist divide. Cosmopolitancare is a three-year experimental project that (a) focuses on migrants’ experiences of the public problem of prostitution; (b) investigates the role of cities in the context of the European current transition towards post-national welfare and healthcare systems; (c) considers the re-actualization of pragmatism, with its methods of investigation and experimentation, as the most appropriate horizon for really investigating the experiences of persons in situation of prostitution.
Research objectives are: (a) to generate a frontier perspective on cities, welfare and migration; (b) to investigate the consequences of stigma in different modes of interventions on migrant and refugee sex workers’ welfare problems; (c) to experiment a people-centered methodology for the evaluation of the accountability of interventions under observation; (d) to establish a series of policy recommendations that will be of value to urban policy across EU.
Work performed
(a) Analysis of forms of mobilization addressing sex workers’ rights issues and the changing territorial configurations of prostitution in Paris: bibliographical documentation, archival research, on-site explorations, participation to public debates, interviews of 12 key actors.
(b) Ethnographic inquiry of activities of an association addressing migrants’ transition out of prostitution up to the end of the project.
(c) Networking activities at local and international level for the co-organization of the International Teach-in on “Racism and worker exploitation in the US & Europe” (co-organization with the association Working Family Solidarity in Chicago in 2021).
(d) Networking activities for the organization of a kick-off meeting, a sequence of 9 focus groups and an International Conference on human trafficking, cities and welfare. Due to the Covid 19 pandemics, they will be held in 2023.
(e) Co-organization of an International Conference on “Pragmatism and the political” that will be held in 2023.
(f) Theoretical reflection on the relationship between pragmatism and urban policies studies. Interdisciplinary bibliographical documentation and interviews of 9 key actors. The peer-reviewed monograph Enqueter sur la ville et le territoire avec Pier Luigi Crosta. Une lecture pragmatiste will be published in spring 2023 for the Bibliothèque Pragmata.
(g) Theoretical reflection on urban ethnography. Two postfaces on urban ethnography have been written for the forthcoming publication of two books in 2023. The first one is for the book Gang, farfalle e oro. Le cure dell’insicurezza a Chicago, Milan, Guerini Editore. The second one is for the translation in French of the already-published book Al mercato con Aida. Una donna Senegalese in Sicilia, Carocci, Rome, 2018.
(h) Theoretical reflection on cities and migrant women’s empowerment. The peer-reviewed article “Cities as laboratories of international action. Some remarks on the political values of foreign women’s empowerment spaces”, DEP, Deportate, Esuli, Profughe, 50, “Feminism and transformation of urban spaces”, will be published in 2023.
(i) Six invited oral communications at the Polytechnic of Milan, University of La Sapienza in Rome and University of Padua and participation at 5 international non-academic webinars organized by Working Family Solidarity in Chicago.
Main results
(a) Anti-trafficking initiatives are processes of internationalization of cities, based on the circulation of persons and objects, attitudes, values and arrangements, practices and policy models. They show different forms of experimentation of international action “in cities” – through moral, emotional and affective transactions between persons in situation of exploitation and people in charge of their assistance - and “between cities” taking in account the different stages of the trafficking process – depart, transit, destination, detention, integration/reintegration.
(b) Social work for persons in situation of prostitution are multi-situated process of de-stigmatization occurring in different organizational settings, through the mediation of t objects, artefacts and arrangements. Women’s emancipation is thus the result of a process of de-stigmatization to the extent in which both professionals, volunteers and beneficiaries engaged themselves into activities of discussion, inquiry and experimentation that affect women’s intimacy and re-configurate power asymmetries within and outside the association.
(c) Ethnography is not only “participant observation”. It is a process of “democratic experimentation” during which researchers and their interlocutors exchange, reshuffle their roles, create forms of collaboration, whether implicit or explicit, that affect unavoidably the research results. The forthcoming integration between ethnography and participatory research may open up new perspectives on research, interdisciplinary experience-based knowledge production, and evaluation of social policy.
(d) New suggestions to urban and social policy research and European policymaking come from the re-actualization of pragmatism. On the one hand, citizens’ experimentation, rather than professional knowledge, must be placed at the forefront of urban and social policymaking. On the other hand, migrant women shed a new light on urban regeneration issues: they emerge as creative actors who generate urban spaces by experimenting international action in the face of small and large shocks – pandemics as well as economic crises, wars, climate change – affecting cities.
(a) Analysis of forms of mobilization addressing sex workers’ rights issues and the changing territorial configurations of prostitution in Paris: bibliographical documentation, archival research, on-site explorations, participation to public debates, interviews of 12 key actors.
(b) Ethnographic inquiry of activities of an association addressing migrants’ transition out of prostitution up to the end of the project.
(c) Networking activities at local and international level for the co-organization of the International Teach-in on “Racism and worker exploitation in the US & Europe” (co-organization with the association Working Family Solidarity in Chicago in 2021).
(d) Networking activities for the organization of a kick-off meeting, a sequence of 9 focus groups and an International Conference on human trafficking, cities and welfare. Due to the Covid 19 pandemics, they will be held in 2023.
(e) Co-organization of an International Conference on “Pragmatism and the political” that will be held in 2023.
(f) Theoretical reflection on the relationship between pragmatism and urban policies studies. Interdisciplinary bibliographical documentation and interviews of 9 key actors. The peer-reviewed monograph Enqueter sur la ville et le territoire avec Pier Luigi Crosta. Une lecture pragmatiste will be published in spring 2023 for the Bibliothèque Pragmata.
(g) Theoretical reflection on urban ethnography. Two postfaces on urban ethnography have been written for the forthcoming publication of two books in 2023. The first one is for the book Gang, farfalle e oro. Le cure dell’insicurezza a Chicago, Milan, Guerini Editore. The second one is for the translation in French of the already-published book Al mercato con Aida. Una donna Senegalese in Sicilia, Carocci, Rome, 2018.
(h) Theoretical reflection on cities and migrant women’s empowerment. The peer-reviewed article “Cities as laboratories of international action. Some remarks on the political values of foreign women’s empowerment spaces”, DEP, Deportate, Esuli, Profughe, 50, “Feminism and transformation of urban spaces”, will be published in 2023.
(i) Six invited oral communications at the Polytechnic of Milan, University of La Sapienza in Rome and University of Padua and participation at 5 international non-academic webinars organized by Working Family Solidarity in Chicago.
Main results
(a) Anti-trafficking initiatives are processes of internationalization of cities, based on the circulation of persons and objects, attitudes, values and arrangements, practices and policy models. They show different forms of experimentation of international action “in cities” – through moral, emotional and affective transactions between persons in situation of exploitation and people in charge of their assistance - and “between cities” taking in account the different stages of the trafficking process – depart, transit, destination, detention, integration/reintegration.
(b) Social work for persons in situation of prostitution are multi-situated process of de-stigmatization occurring in different organizational settings, through the mediation of t objects, artefacts and arrangements. Women’s emancipation is thus the result of a process of de-stigmatization to the extent in which both professionals, volunteers and beneficiaries engaged themselves into activities of discussion, inquiry and experimentation that affect women’s intimacy and re-configurate power asymmetries within and outside the association.
(c) Ethnography is not only “participant observation”. It is a process of “democratic experimentation” during which researchers and their interlocutors exchange, reshuffle their roles, create forms of collaboration, whether implicit or explicit, that affect unavoidably the research results. The forthcoming integration between ethnography and participatory research may open up new perspectives on research, interdisciplinary experience-based knowledge production, and evaluation of social policy.
(d) New suggestions to urban and social policy research and European policymaking come from the re-actualization of pragmatism. On the one hand, citizens’ experimentation, rather than professional knowledge, must be placed at the forefront of urban and social policymaking. On the other hand, migrant women shed a new light on urban regeneration issues: they emerge as creative actors who generate urban spaces by experimenting international action in the face of small and large shocks – pandemics as well as economic crises, wars, climate change – affecting cities.
Research and policy debates on prostitution and migration issues – especially welfare issues - are confined to the abolitionist/regulamentarist opposition. Mainstream national policy tends to consider human trafficking for sexual exploitation as an international human rights violation but confines it to a criminal justice approach. CosmopolitanCare is an experimental research project addressing the empowerment of migrant women in situation of prostitution in Paris through a collaborative research approach. It opens up a new “urban welfare” perspective on prostitution and human trafficking: the focus is on cities as laboratories for international action where research, only experimenting cooperation with sex workers, ngos and/or institutions, may give a new understanding of migrants’ experiences of human trafficking for sexual exploitation, its underground changing patterns and its real connections with different policy domains at local, national and international level.