5Sex Workers as Stakeholders: Incorporating Harm Reduction into Archaeological Praxis

Abstract

Stereotypes and stigma around sex work are powerful political and social forces that are used to justify state violence, dehumanization, and marginalization. Drawing on community archaeology scholarship, I discuss how my engagement with sex workers redirected the questions I asked of the past, pushing me toward a more rigorous and ethical praxis. Harm-reduction philosophies, which emphasize agency and non-judgmentalism, can valuably contribute to an intersubjective feminist praxis in archaeological research. Drawing on discussions of intersectionality and spatial policing, I review existing scholarship on sex work and discuss the dialectical relationship between the present and the past.