Transformations of Labour through the Lens of Sex Work: Navigating Digitalization, Precarity and Resistance

This volume engages with the question of how labour is transforming under late capitalism, and what insights the study of sex work offers into these transformations.

Presenting case studies from the Global North, this book situates sex work within the frameworks of neoliberal governance, digitalization, platformization, and gig economy to examine how economic relations, labour practices, and activism are changing under these conditions. It demonstrates that sex work offers a powerful lens through which to understand the contradictions of contemporary labour regimes: autonomy bound up with precarity, visibility with surveillance, and agency with algorithmic control. The book highlights the mobility and agency of labouring subjectivities, showing how resistance often emerges through strategic engagement with the very structures produced by neoliberalism. While affirming the importance of legal recognition of sex work, the book contends that this alone is insufficient to disrupt the broader systems of exclusion and inequality experienced by sex workers and embedded in late capitalist economies.

This book will be of interest to scholars and advanced readers engaged in debates on labour, sexuality, and political economy. It is particularly relevant to those working in critical labour studies, feminist theory, sociology, and socio-legal research, as well as to policymakers and activists concerned with labour rights and social justice.

Chapter 5 and the Introduction chapter of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

Iztok Šori (PhD in Sociology) is a researcher and director at the Peace Institute, Slovenia, an independent research and advocacy organization dedicated to human rights, democracy and social justice. His academic interests focus on the intersections of gender, migration, and labour. With extensive experience in both national and international research projects, he has recently led a project on occupational risks in sex work. In addition to his research activities, Šori works closely with advisory bodies on science and gender equality. His most recent publication (2024) examines the affective framing of migration as a security threat by right-wing populist movements.

Majda Hrženjak (PhD in Sociology) is a senior researcher at the Peace Institute, Slovenia. Her work explores care work, gender, and labour market inequalities through an interdisciplinary lens that bridges sociology and gender studies. She has coordinated and contributed to numerous national and international research projects and serves on editorial and scientific boards, including Men and Masculinities. Her scholarship is published in leading international journals and edited collections, with a focus on the social organization of care, labour mobility, and intersectional inequalities. Her most recent work (2025) examines the governance of labour migration in senior care homes.