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Sovereign Silence: Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act and Legalizing Sex Work in Sonagachi
Author(s) -
Dasgupta Simanti
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
polar: political and legal anthropology review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.529
H-Index - 27
eISSN - 1555-2934
pISSN - 1081-6976
DOI - 10.1111/plar.12053
Subject(s) - silence , grassroots , subaltern , state (computer science) , power (physics) , sex work , government (linguistics) , sovereignty , political science , work (physics) , gender studies , sociology , criminology , law , politics , medicine , engineering , mechanical engineering , philosophy , linguistics , physics , family medicine , algorithm , quantum mechanics , human immunodeficiency virus (hiv) , computer science , aesthetics
Drawing upon ethnographic work with a grassroots sex workers’ organization in Calcutta, Durbar Samanwaya Samiti (Durbar), this article analyzes the relationship between subalternity and silence. I discuss how sex workers, especially new entrants, use silence as a subaltern strategy to resist state and non‐state surveillance intended to oppose trafficking. The increased surveillance is a direct result of the global anti‐trafficking narrative, led mainly by the United States, in which developing countries, like India, adopt measures to avoid being downgraded in the United States’ Trafficking in Persons Report. I contend that these national and international efforts have led to a quandary where the lives of these sex workers are rendered inaudible. Here I specifically examine the practices of the Self‐Regulatory Board, established by Durbar to identify new entrants who may have been unwilling trafficked and do not want to join the profession. I argue that the Board, in replicating state practices, in effect has created an environment where women prefer to embrace silence in order to confront its power.

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