This presentation explores how non-governmental organizations (NGOs), as new agents of governance in the context of a downsized neoliberal state and shrinking gendered labour market, have impacted the possibility of struggle for sex workers’ human and labour rights. Based on participant observation, interviews with staff at NGOs and with sex workers in San José, Costa Rica, I argue that sex workers have gone from being seen as workers and subjects of labour rights in the 1990s, to victims that can be remade as entrepreneurs in the 2000s. In the context of neoliberal Costa Rica, this shift away from demanding workers’ rights toward saving victims and empowering entrepreneurs has had a significant impact on public discourses about sex workers, as well as on their future possibilities for recognition as workers.

Speaker: Dr. Megan Rivers-Moore