TY - JOUR
T1 - "Maybe I’m a quiet activist"
T2 - sex work scholars and negotiations of ‘minor’ academic-activism
AU - Laing, Mary
AU - Cook, Ian R.
AU - Baker, Tom
AU - Calder-Dawe, Octavia
PY - 2022/4/1
Y1 - 2022/4/1
N2 - With the intensification of calls for social ‘impact’ from research, there is renewed emphasis on academic-activism as a means to realize social change. But what ‘counts’ as activism in these visions of academic-activist impact? Drawing on interviews with sex work scholars in the United Kingdom and Aotearoa New Zealand, we examine the borders—and the disruption of borders—between ‘traditional’ forms of activism and a wider array of more ‘minor’ practices frequently perceived as too ‘ordinary’ to claim that label. In doing this, we explore quiet, implicit and everyday forms of activism, arguing that activism is embodied, frequently undertaken by those who do not self-identify as activists, and sits ambivalently within broader institutional drives for research-based ‘impact’.
AB - With the intensification of calls for social ‘impact’ from research, there is renewed emphasis on academic-activism as a means to realize social change. But what ‘counts’ as activism in these visions of academic-activist impact? Drawing on interviews with sex work scholars in the United Kingdom and Aotearoa New Zealand, we examine the borders—and the disruption of borders—between ‘traditional’ forms of activism and a wider array of more ‘minor’ practices frequently perceived as too ‘ordinary’ to claim that label. In doing this, we explore quiet, implicit and everyday forms of activism, arguing that activism is embodied, frequently undertaken by those who do not self-identify as activists, and sits ambivalently within broader institutional drives for research-based ‘impact’.
KW - sex work scholars
KW - activism
KW - minor theory
KW - impact agenda
KW - identity
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85127807046&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1177/13634607211068690
DO - 10.1177/13634607211068690
M3 - Article
JO - Sexualities
JF - Sexualities
SN - 1363-4607
M1 - 136346072110686
ER -