Circulating Subjects: Sex Work and Migration in Russia, 1885–1935 - Couverture rigide

Hetherington, Philippa

Couverture rigide

ISBN 10 : 1501787667 ISBN 13 : 9781501787669

Editeur : Cornell University Press, 2026

Synopsis

Circulating Subjects investigates the migration of women abroad for sex work from the 1880s through the 1930s, which Russian feminists, liberal jurists, and imperial bureaucrats worked together to define and criminalize as "white slavery." As Circulating Subjects reveals, white slavery became a powerful tool of border control for the Russian Empire, later the Soviet Union, as it played a central role in shaping a global campaign against sex trafficking.

Philippa Hetherington explores how a paternalistic desire to protect women underwrote the expansion of state power, linking gender, sexuality, and migration to the broader politics of sovereignty. Through vivid archival research spanning Odessa, Istanbul, and Geneva, Hetherington follows the development of Russian and Soviet efforts against sex trafficking across legal, diplomatic, and carceral domains. She draws on police files, consular reports, and the records of early feminist and humanitarian organizations to show how anti-trafficking campaigns, often led by people who considered themselves progressive, ultimately reinforced systems of surveillance and repression. Her framing of the "sex/migration nexus" captures how trafficking became a flexible label used to police the movements of entire populations.

Circulating Subjects examines how trafficking was constructed, debated, and institutionalized. Hetherington's account offers critical insight into how moral panic becomes policy and how states mobilize concern for women to reinforce their power. For readers interested in gender, migration, and global law, this book illuminates a past that echoes in the ways we police borders today.

A propos du livre

À propos de l'auteur

Philippa Hetherington was Lecturer in Russian and Eurasian History at University College London. Her work explored the history of gender, sexuality, and international law in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: Cornell University Press
• Date d'édition: 2026
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 1501787667
• ISBN 13: 9781501787669
• Reliure: Relié
• Nombre de pages: 342
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
• Personne responsable: non disponible