Book Review: Julie Ham, Sex Work, Immigration and Social Difference
| Published date | 01 November 2017 |
| Author | Samuel Hanks |
| Date | 01 November 2017 |
| DOI | 10.1177/1362480617699102 |
| Subject Matter | Book reviews |
Book reviews 561
Indigenous researchers operate within criminology without themselves becoming vic-
tims of ‘indigenization’?
In settler societies, Indigenous Criminology must ultimately engage with the dominant
political order, and with other branches of the discipline, where it seems to me that its
most valuable role is to teach and enlighten non-Indigenous colleagues. The great writer
James Baldwin (1962) once wrote about the white dominated society in which he lived:
You must accept them and accept them with love, for these innocent people have no other hope.
They are in effect still trapped in a history which they do not understand and until they
understand it, they cannot be released from it.
In a discipline concerned, in large part, with questions of guilt and innocence, there is no
longer any excuse for criminologists to remain ‘innocent’ of the impact of colonization
and the self-determination struggles of Indigenous peoples on matters of crime and jus-
tice. This book, as I understand it, is an attempt to guide us along the path towards
decolonizing ourselves and our discipline.
References
Agozino B (2003) Counter-Colonial Criminology: A Critique of Imperialist Reason. London:
Pluto Press.
Baldwin J (1962) A letter to my nephew. The Progressive, 1 January. Available at: http://progres-
sive.org/magazine/letter-nephew/.
Carrington K, Hogg RG and Sozzo M (2016) Southern criminology. British Journal of Criminology
56(1): 1–20.
Book reviews
Julie Ham, Sex Work, Immigration and Social Difference, Routledge: Oxon, 2017; 176 pp.:
9781138925397, £90.00 (hbk)
Reviewed by: Samuel Hanks, Cardiff University, UK
Julie Ham’s book Sex Work, Immigration and Social Difference offers a compelling analy-
sis of the impact of contrasting regulatory frameworks on women sex workers’ agency,
security and mobility. Through a comparative analysis of Vancouver, Canada, where sex
work is criminalized, and Melbourne, Australia where it is legalized, the book seeks to
address three research questions. First, how do the social differences of female sex work-
ers shift across workplaces and borders, and how do such shifts influence spaces for secu-
rity, mobility and agency in sex work? Second, how is illegality and legality in sex work
and migration produced via frameworks of governance? Here, Ham questions how female
immigrant, migrant and racialized sex workers negotiate transitions between legality and
illegality to ensure their security, mobility and agency. Third, the book explores how sex
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