Contestations and contradictions: feminist research on structures and institutions governing sex work in India

Taking exception to the persistent and recurrent exceptionalism of sex work within discourses on anti-trafficking, global health, brahmanical patriarchy and Indian nationalism, this special section comprises four articles. Originally conceived as part of a panel for a spring conference scheduled for summer 2020, the articles emerged in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic and include research by Dr Gowri Vijayakumar, Dr Vibhuti Ramachandran, Dr Mirna Guha, and Dr Kimberly Walters. Through an analysis of the historical and contemporaneous experiences of marginalised cis women (dis)engaged in selling sex across diverse contexts, these articles deploy a range of conceptual and methodological approaches to interrogate longstanding institutional efforts to surveil, target and govern their bodies. In doing so, together, they delineate and challenge the enduring legacy of a long history of moral and public health panics that have framed the lives of people who sell sex in India since colonial times. This addresses structural and epistemic violence visited upon sex workers and strengthens ongoing efforts to forward an alternative, intersectional feminist reading of sex work in India.