Researchers' Role In Navigating Fieldwork-Related Moral Dilemmas In Sex Work Research

Sex work research operates within a highly criminalized, stigmatized, and politicized environment. While much is known about the risks faced by sex workers, far less is known about the risks and challenges faced by scholars who study them. There has been limited scholarly examination of the research process itself — particularly how a researcher's positionality shapes relationships with participants and broader institutional structures. Critical questions often go unaddressed: How do researchers navigate the criminalized and stigmatized landscapes of their countries to access participants? What challenges arise for scholars within academic institutions? And in what ways does this work fundamentally change their lives?

This roundtable turns the gaze on the research process by bringing together five South Asian scholars who use intersectional and critical feminist methodologies and have extensive fieldwork experience across diverse sex worker communities in Nepal, India, and Pakistan. The panel will explore the ethical dilemmas and safety concerns encountered during fieldwork, emphasizing the role of critical reflexivity in rigorous inquiry and ethical responsibility, demonstrating how these research practices promote democratic values and the common good.

Panelist 1, using in-depth qualitative interviews with brothel-based and transient cisgender and transgender sex workers in India, examines the impact of location, spatialization, and visibility on the scope and intensity of stigmatization in the trade.

Informed by mixed-methods research designs, Panelist 2, who specializes in health communication and mobile health (mHealth) app-based interventions among sex workers in Kathmandu, Nepal, discusses the ethical challenges researchers face when navigating these digital spaces, particularly the risks of surveillance and stigma.

Informed by the lens of intersectional stigma, Panelist 3 draws on her in-depth interviews with hijra and transgender sex workers in Hyderabad, India, and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan, to shed light on the challenges of accessing participants, researcher safety, and IRB navigation across these varied contexts.

Panelist 4’s qualitative research examining the health and well-being of sex workers in Mumbai, India, argues for a critical examination of the researcher's positionality as essential for amplifying sex workers' voices and advancing their rights and self-determination.

Panelist 5, drawing on ethnographic research with sex worker communities and rights-based organizations in Kolkata, India, examines the ethical issues and “courtesy stigma” encountered by researchers, and discusses how these issues affect data collection processes and outcomes.

The roundtable will open with brief reflections from each panelist on what drew them to sex work studies. Guiding discussion questions will include: How do criminalized and stigmatized contexts in South Asia shape IRB navigation and participant access? How does digital surveillance (e.g., mHealth platforms) alter fieldwork ethics and safety? And how does the researcher's positionality across intersecting identities of gender, religion, and nationality shape the knowledge production? An interactive, moderated discussion will follow, inviting audience members to ask questions and engage directly with panelists. Together, their insights will equip researchers and practitioners to develop non-exploitative research designs. In doing so, the roundtable aims to foster genuine, non-extractive allyship with communities beyond researchers’ own.