Departing from stigma and secrecy and elevating stories of agency: Narrative practice in the voices of sex workers
This paper explores the use of narrative therapy and community work to respond to the complexities surrounding women’s experiences in the sex industry. It offers practices for therapists and community workers seeking to engage with sex workers in ways that are respectful of their hard- won knowle...
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| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Dulwich Centre Foundation
2024-03-01
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| Series: | International Journal of Narrative Therapy and Community Work |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://dulwichcentre.com.au/departing-from-stigma-and-secrecy-and-elevating-stories-of-agency-narrative-practice-in-the-voices-of-sex-workers-kaur-serendipity/ |
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| Summary: | This paper explores the use of narrative therapy and community work to respond to the complexities
surrounding women’s experiences in the sex industry. It offers practices for therapists and
community workers seeking to engage with sex workers in ways that are respectful of their hard-
won knowledge and seek to elicit double-storied accounts in relation to hardship, thicken stories
of preferred identities, and explore absent-but-implicit values, hopes and commitments. These
practices include an innovative use of re-membering questions and a collective Tree of Life
process adapted to the specific experiences of women in the sex industry. The paper elevates
the insider knowledge of sex workers, particularly the lived experience of women engaged in sex
work in which they have a high degree of choice and autonomy. It includes a collective document
of sex workers’ insider knowledge about confronting stigma and isolation, addressed to people
whose work intertwines with sex workers in some way: therapists, support workers, lawyers,
police, activists. |
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| ISSN: | 2981-8818 |