About my Ph.D. Thesis
During the autumn of 2008, I started my
doctoral studies in social anthropology at Lund University. The working title
of my thesis is: 'The Swedish Sex Purchase Ban: Ethnography of a Law'.
There are
many features of the Swedish ban on sex purchase that can be approached from
a social anthropological perspective: there is a gap between its claimed success and
documented effects, the discourse is emotionally and morally charged, and it is
a legal prohibition (rather than a policy) that different actors in Sweden wish
to export and which those abroad seek to import. However, the law is never imported directly. It may be altered or distorted, and of course, rejected. Hence, the sex purchase law has different sets of meanings to the the different actors involved. It is a field of moral and
political conflict, with its set of perpetrators, victims, witnesses and
advocates.
My Ph.D.
research explores the functions of the Sex Purchase Ban and links these to
wider socio-political events and discourses. It seeks to understand the law’s
intentions, meanings and aims within its cultural context. One could also
articulate it like this: What problem is the Sex Purchase Ban an answer to? In
what way can the law be a key or a window to understanding "something else" about
the role of law, and ‘legal export’, in modern societies? What is this "something else"?
I have
utilised a multi-sited fieldwork methodology and I have visited several countries
where there was a discussion about importing the Swedish law, and have conducted participant-observation and interviews in a variety of legal and policy forums
connected with sex workers and anti-prostitution venues. My theoretical
orientation is a combination of political anthropology, legal anthropology,
moral anthropology and the anthropology of policy.
The first
three years of the PhD were funded by a grant from the Axel and Margaret Ax:son Johnson Foundation, and the final year via doctoral
employment at Lund University.
You can
read more about my research background under the Curriculum Vitae section. My publications can also be accessed, as well as
information about related research in Sweden.