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E-book
Author Thusi, I. India, author.

Title Policing bodies : law, sex work, and desire in Johannesburg / I. India Thusi
Published Stanford, California : Stanford University Press, [2022]
Online access available from:
ProQuest Ebook Central    View Resource Record  

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Description 1 online resource : illustrations, maps
Contents Policing and sex work in historical perspective -- Mapping the policing of sex -- Informal policing in Rosebank -- Policing beauty -- Sex work, feminism, and policy
Summary "Sex work occupies a legally grey space in Johannesburg, South Africa, and police attitudes towards it are inconsistent and largely unregulated. As I. India Thusi argues in Policing Bodies this results in, both, room for negotiation that can benefit sex workers, as well as extreme precarity in which the security police officers provide can be offered and taken away at a moment's notice. Sex work straddles the line between formal and informal. Attitudes about beauty and subjective value are manifest in formal tasks, including police activities, which are often conducted in a seemingly ad hoc manner. However, high-level organizational directives intended to regulate police obligations and duties toward sex workers also influence police action and tilt the exercise of discretion to the formal. In this liminal space, this book considers how sex work is policed and how it should be policed. Challenging discourses about sexuality and gender that inform its regulation, Thusi exposes the limitations of dominant feminist arguments regarding the legal treatment of sex work. This in-depth, historically informed ethnography, illustrates the tension between enforcing a country's laws and protecting citizens' human rights"-- Provided by publisher
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index
Notes Description based on online resource; title from digital title page (viewed on January 12, 2022)
Subject Human rights -- South Africa.
Law enforcement -- South Africa -- Johannesburg
Prostitution -- Law and legislation -- South Africa
Prostitution -- South Africa -- Johannesburg
Sex workers -- Legal status, laws, etc. -- South Africa
Human rights.
LAW / Gender & the Law.
Law enforcement.
Prostitution -- Law and legislation.
Prostitution.
South Africa -- Johannesburg.
South Africa.
Form Electronic book
LC no. 2021016527
ISBN 1503629759
9781503629752