Citizenship in the twilight zone? sex work, the regulation of belonging and sexual democratization in Argentina

The impasse regarding the legal status of sex work has for decades been at the centre of heated international debate. While local, regional and international sex workers’ associations strive to achieve the decriminalisation of sex work, the new feminist abolitionist discourse and the current framing of the sex industry within the anti-trafficking paradigm are working counter to this (Bernstein, 2007; Mai, 2009; Squire et al., 2012). In this context of the conflicting discourses, interests and aims of different socio-cultural and political constellations, the demands of sex workers for their rights as sex workers to be acknowledged remain unheard, and their precarious and highly vulnerable situation continues (Agustín, 2007; Andrijasevic, 2010).