ABSTRACT
This introductory chapter will discuss the past decade’s coming of age of the geographies of sex work, identifying five main fields of research. In the following section we will explore the burgeoning literature exploring the relation between sex work and the politics of urban space. The next section focuses on the global scale, discussing the policing of transnational sex work. The fourth section opens up new avenues of theoretical exploration in discussing the regulation of sex work as a biopolitical endeavour to construct heteronormality. The final two sections are dedicated to micro-level research on the everyday spatial practices of individual sex workers, on the one hand, and the role of places and spatial performances in the construction of identities and subjectivities of sex workers, on the other. In the conclusion, we introduce the four chapters of Section VI by situating them in the five fields described.
