Sex worker rights are human rights: an approach to solidaristic normative theory

Abstract

In this article, we argue for solidaristic normative theorizing, which entails engaging in sustained dialogue with people who experience oppression and working with them to advance their struggles for justice. We draw guidance from Indigenous, Black, and Latine scholars, who have long done this type of work. We develop and apply principles of inductive recursivity, which privileges the insights of those who experience oppression; comprehensiveness of research materials and attentiveness to power; skeptical but empathetic scrutiny when assessing research materials; and accountability through reflexivity and ongoing relationships with oppressed individuals, groups, and communities. With reference to the struggles of major sex worker rights organizations in Canada and the United States to address the harms associated with criminalization, we outline our approach to theory building and illustrate what it looks like in practice. By developing a conceptual link between the everyday harms faced by sex workers, due in large part to criminal laws around their professional activities, and the deeper ontological and epistemological injustices against them, we hope that our theorizing contributes – even in a small way – to public understanding of the depth of the oppressive governance regime of criminalization and the importance of dismantling it.