Abstract
A doctoral student in the Department of Sociology has submitted a research proposal to study mutual support relationships amongst sex workers. She has developed some contacts through whom she has become aware of these mutually supportive relationships and would like to engage in more formal study of this largely unexplored aspect of sex workers’ lives.
Some of the sex workers collectively rent a flat used specifically for work. The researcher plans to explore how this arrangement developed and why, how it works in practice, as well as the kind of support the workers provide for each other; that is, whether the relationship is based on friendship and so provides psychological and emotional support, whether it is largely a relationship of financial convenience, or mainly safety. She will also address the question of whether and how new ‘members’ are incorporated into the group.
Many women, however, work on the streets. Here, too, there are support networks. The research will explore the basis and nature of these networks, the ways in which they differ from the relationships characterised by collective rental and use of premises, and why these women haven’t taken the option of collective working, off the streets. There may be specific preferences for street work or barriers to moving into a safer off-street environment.
The research will involve observation and one-to-one interviews over a period of three months. Interviews will be recorded and transcribed, and data kept secure on University servers in encrypted files, with only the student and her supervisor having access.
The sex workers will be given an unconditional assurance of confidentiality due to the nature of their work, the stigma attached to it and that, in some cases, the women’s family and friends are unaware of what they do. This means that the researcher is requesting approval to depart from the normal policy that confidentiality is conditional and will or may not be maintained where criminal activity is revealed. Given that soliciting will be involved, and the flat used and paid for collectively is technically a brothel, adhering to the normal policy would make the research untenable. According to her existing contacts, in the rare cases where clients abuse the workers the police are not involved as the workers are distrustful of the police. Rather they circulate a warning through their network. So the researcher would be required to provide an assurance not to notify the police in turn. Furthermore, as existing research indicates that most sex workers are drug users, the researcher is also likely to become aware of illegal drug use, although she will inform the workers that she cannot be a witness to any such use.
Mindful of concerns for her safety, the student proposes to provide someone with information about where she is, who she is with and the time she can be expected to return, as well as to phone her contact hourly while in the field. She cannot be accompanied by an additional person on her field work for safety as it is difficult to gain the workers’ trust and introductions will be based on personal recommendations – from one worker to another. Having some unknown person accompany her is likely to affect whether a worker will consent to talk to her and the extent to which that worker will confide in her. She will always meet workers at a pre-arranged time and place and, if at all possible, off the street.
Observation of street activity will always be from within a car. When engaged in observation in the collective flat she will never be alone. The workers employ a woman who acts as a housekeeper, and whose presence is meant to provide a safe-guard for the sex workers themselves. The additional presence of the researcher is likely to improve safety on the premises for all.
*Would you approve this study?
*Would you request any changes or additional safeguards?