On Prostitution: Historiographic and Semantic Change for a Global Labor and Migration History

This article deals with historiographic and semantic change in prostitution studies through some examples from recent literature. Current studies evaluate prostitution as sex work and emphasize the agency of women from a historical point of view. By doing so, they situate prostitution studies within the global labor and migration history which treats the issues of «trafficking in women» as labor migration and questions the notions of «fallenness» or «victimhood » in various contexts. The article also contextualizes the periodization of prostitution studies while presenting briefly how sources and actors of prostitution studies widened our perspectives on modern state, colonialism, institutions, labor and gender politics.