Migration, (Im-)mobility and Modernity

Toward a Feminist Understanding of the "Global" Prostitution Scene in Amsterdam
 

*mostly EU countries
Source: Gemeentelijke Geneeskundige en Gezondheidsdienst, Jaarverslag 1997, 
Project Vertrouwensvrouw (Migranten)prostitutie (Amsterdam, GG&GD: 1998), p. 5.

Striking about the figures in this table is that they not only show the diversity of the prostitutes in terms of their regional origin, but also the rapid turnover or changes in the make-up of the group window prostitutes. In the report it is suggested that these changes are largely due to the measures taken by the police to enforce increasingly strict immigration laws. As soon as the information spread through the Red Light district that it was no longer permitted for migrant women without a work permit to work in the Amsterdam prostitution industry, many Latin American prostitutes moved to other parts of the town or to cities elsewhere in The Netherlands and abroad. In contrast, prostitutes from those Central and East European countries that have signed an Association Treaty with the EU are taking the Dutch immigration authorities to court because, as self-employed entrepreneurs, they are in principle allowed to work legally in The Netherlands. 
This illustrates that the role of the state and municipal authorities in regulating the prostitution industry is very important. Often, changes in policies or the implementation of new regulations can seriously affect the make-up of the prostitution industry, the working conditions and even the (physical) risks that prostitutes are facing while working. The Amsterdam municipal authorities have over the centuries tried to regulate and control prostitution within its city walls. These efforts have been informed by a combination of concerns about public order, public health and (public-Calvinist) morality. 
In recent years the regulation of prostitution has also been fed by two additional concerns. On the one hand, national and municipal authorities are trying to prevent illegal immigrants from working in the prostitution industry by enforcing immigration laws more strictly. On the other hand, prostitution rights' activists and advocates of hyper (or neo)liberal deregulation seem to have become an odd pair of bedfellows in their quest for legalising brothels. As it stands now, a proposal concerning the (de-)regulation of the sex industry and the lifting on the (not enforced) ban on brothels is pending in parliament.
According to this proposal, the prohibition of brothels will soon be removed from the penal code. This article will be replaced by another, which prohibits the exploitation of involuntary prostitution and of the prostitution of minors. The legalisation of the exploitation of voluntary prostitution renders prostitution a legalised form of business activity. It was already legal to work voluntarily, as a self-employed person in prostitution, but with the changes in the law it will be equally possible to practice prostitution as a business or organisation. The dual purpose of this change in the law is to better combat involuntary prostitution as well as open the industry to regular/regulated market forces. Initially, prostitution activists favoured such a law, because it would not only improve the working conditions and rights of prostitutes but may also lead to the social acceptance of sex workers. 
In sum, the proposed law is aimed to improve the enforcement of rules concerning the protection against sexual abuse, the social position of prostitutes, the rights of sex-workers, as well as the prohibition of violence against prostitutes and the control and regulation of prostitution industry. As such these rules and regulations are both a reaction to and give direction to the emerging global economy of desire in Amsterdam. They also contribute to the (internal) structuring of the prostitution industry. In the remainder of the paper we will, therefore, explore how this proposed legislation as well as activities by prostitution activists are reflective of and reify certain (neo-colonial) representations about public/private, (im)mobility and (hyper)modernity in such a way as to lead to the social exclusion of migrant prostitutes.

Public and Private Prostitution in Amsterdam
Hypermodernity has given way to a restructuring of public and private spheres, 
allowing them to become intertwined, producing hybrid forms, wherein the public exists in the private, and the private in the public. This process has been fetishised in Amsterdam's Red Light district. The particularity of the district stems from the public or exhibitionary practices by which prostitutes market their bodies, in the windows of rented rooms. As such, men are provided with an environment in which to objectify female bodies in conditions which reproduce a market culture of surveillance and circumspection. Men utilise such market conditions in order to check for disease and physical deficiency in the process of selection. Yet this tendency towards surveillance is cut short when it comes to the actual exchange of money for sex between worker and client. All such exchange takes place behind drawn curtains, in strictly adhered to private conditions. The functioning of the district in many ways, serves to demonstrate how gendered a process this system depends on. The trajectory of modernity towards greater autonomy of the public sphere, of rationalisation, and concomitantly masculinisation, is rendered false by the ways in which asculinity itself seeks to continue to (p)reserve sex for the private realm. The privacy pertaining to sexual exchange, and even more importantly, the drawn curtains which obscure the exchange of cash for sex, serve to protect men from sight while at their most vulnerable. As Camille Paglia notes "(the exchange of) money is a confession of weakness. They have to buy women's attention. Its not a sign of power; it's a sign of weakness." 
In contrast to window prostitution, other forms of the industry have been marginalised within Amsterdam. For example, municipal authorities have designated the secluded west harbour area for street prostitution, where the vulnerability of the female and transgender prostitutes is considerably heightened. The complicity of municipal authorities in the exposure of women to this type of danger is justified on the basis of the overtly public nature of their work: street prostitution is classed by its very nature as a public nuisance. Unlike window prostitution it does not reproduce the interchange between public and private spheres, instead it is purely public and thus subverts the ideological function served by the district. Alternatively, brothel prostitution is largely ignored as a focus for regulation, because it is more or less invisible and does not disturb public order. However, the intensely private functioning of brothel and club prostitution means that women are more likely to be subjected to the will of the owner or boss of the club, and to the client. Unlike workers within the district, women in brothels and clubs do not always have the right to refuse a client.
By openly challenging the public-private divide and constantly shifting between economic and emotional realms, window-prostitution and the window prostitute occupy a special place in the ideological framework of hypermodernity, and that of the hypermodern, global city. She, the woman behind the window, sits at the nexus of public and private spheres, embodying the process by which hypermodern subjectivity is constituted. This is something which many of the women are quite conscious of experiencing. As Margot Alvarez, once a working women within the district and now head of the Rode Draad reflects, "the window itself is a symbol. It is both a site of vulnerability and of protection. From one side, I am on public display. From the other, I watch the public world from the perspective of my private self." 
 

Spatial (Im-)mobility
The interchange of public and private spheres is one way in which the sex industry signifies hypermodernity within Amsterdam. Another means is that by which it supports what we call a mobility/immobility nexus. With the compression of time and space characteristic of our late modern times, mobility has become an important signifier of the "developed", of "sophistication" and "advancement." The obsession with speed and travel in popular culture is just one expression of this. This is also true for the prostitution industry, especially as it has become increasingly globalised. 
Themes of mobility, anonymity, and rootlessness have long since been identified with prostitution, but they now also serve to create and uphold certain bundaries between native and migrant sex workers. Not surprisingly, the sex industry as a whole has always been characterised by a system of rotation and circulation of human beings. Various forces, ranging from local and national policies, client demand for frequent changes in the supply of prostitutes, to the search for anonymity by prostitutes themselves, feed this mobility.
However, from the perspective of the prostitutes spatial mobility is considered important, as it enables them to maintain control over their working conditions, and to leave and enter different types of prostitution. In fact the ability to spatially structure a divide between working and living conditions, and control one's movement between these areas is used by monitoring organisations as a means to assess the degree of freedom or emancipation among sex workers. 
Migrant prostitutes endure a paradoxical relationship to themes of mobility/immobility. Many of them have been trafficked vast distances across the world and then been forced to occupy a room often no larger than three square metres for extensive periods of the day. Quite a few of them are forced to sleep in the same building as the one in which they are working. This aspect of global restructuring, the hyper-displacement and circulation of human subjects, leading to transplantation and immobility within global cities, is indicative of continuities between hypermodernity and earlier forms of imperialism. It demonstrates the (ironic) coherence between a capital export/import system, one which required the displacement, and representational use of cultural artefacts for its justification, and a hypermodern capitalism which appropriates human beings (most often women) for such signification instead. The creation of imperial culture within Europe, was enabled by the plunder of artefacts from colonised countries, and the transplant of them to imperial metropoles such as Amsterdam. 
Yet in the (re)birth of these metropoles as global cities, they are the sites of a signification which exceeds itself in intensity and violence. The appropriation, displacement and exhibition of artefacts has been eclipsed by the hypermodern fetish for the use of human subjects as imperial insignia. The global city proclaims itself as a convergence point for identities: prior, place-bound, preserved and exhibited in the representational spaces of service and media. In Amsterdam, the Red Light district exemplifies this function. The city expresses its globality by drawing, assembling, and exhibiting feminised forms of beauty, signifying not only the reach of liberal capitalism, but its ability to subdue rival political forms. The emergence of a Central and East European sector within the district, running off that of the West European, symbolises the triumph of the West in the Cold War, while preserving the sense of condionality which attaches to the envelopment of former Soviet regions into the capitalist system. The exhibitionary character of the district, the display of women as objects, the furnishing of exotica, all serves to underline the continuity in experience and representation of empire.
 

Conceptual (Im-)mobility
However, mobility entails more than mere physical movement/acceleration. For women and prostitutes in particular, it implies an ability to shift between conceptual spaces, public and private spheres. Janine Brodie identifies the ability to control and manage movement between these boundaries as a skill based on (dis)advantages of class and race. Professionalism among women implies an ability to control and manage the movement between the public and private spheres. Managing the shifts between public and private spheres has become integral to women's societal status. 
Hyperliberalism covets the woman who can solve the ensuing (reproductive) dilemma, by upholding her responsibilities within both spheres. This type of discourse does not only pertain to managerial occupations alone. Within prostitution similar values are in circulation, reproducing similar prejudices based on class and race. Prostitutes in the district tend to make a discursive distinction between women who are able to manage the movement between public and private spheres, the so-called professionals, and those who are victimised by it, described as amateurs. 
A prostitute who is professional will develop a public persona which she adopts while at work. Within such a persona, she will pool any range of masculine constructions of feminine desirability, depending on her interpretation of what (male) clients demand of her. As such the persona she adopts is purely instrumental. It is a constructed and managed identity, a performance art and marketing strategy, designed to mimic the gendered stereotypes of desirability. Her seduction of the client is based on an age-old principle of unequal exchange, or what we might call the "Circe factor." The basis of the transaction is not so much the exchange of money for sex, but the exchange of money for a sexual emotion. Prostitutes testify that a large part of their work involves creating the illusion that the emotions experienced in transaction by their clients, are reciprocated by themselves. While professional prostitutes learn to play upon this illusion, in actuality they undercut it by psychologically withdrawing from the process of exchange, surrendering no emotional or physical reciprocation to the client. In fact a professional does quite the opposite. She uses her self-manipulated public-persona as a shield to her private persona, one through which she preserves her independence, ability to rationalise, and control. By doing so she is able to control the client, thus not allowing herself to become the subjection of her own self-manipulated public persona. While recognising and upholding the hypermodern relation between representations of whores and Madonnas, she structures a division between public and private spheres, rather than allowing them to intersect.
In contrast, amateurism is defined by the ways in which some sex workers struggle to structure the relation between public and private realms achieved by the professionals. Rather than managing a divide between a public persona used as a marketing device, and a private persona, such amateur women succumb to their construction as victim. Their public persona interchanges with their private persona, to the effect that they make no distinction, either while at the window, or in transaction. 
As such, they become the victim which would otherwise be only a constructed marketing device. This may lead to circumstances where the woman involved experiences sexual exchange in an emotional manner, in turn allowing the client to manipulate her. A common form of manipulation, one which equally demonstrates the inability of the amateur to structure public and private realms, is the demand for unprotected sex. Professional women testify to the importance of condoms in providing a physical and psychological barrier between themselves and the client. For the professional woman the condom signifies the difference between commercial sex, which she performs at work, and intimate sex in which she engages unprotected with her partner at home. Amateur women, who cannot structure a divide between public and private realms, may fall victim to the health risks of STDs and Aids.
The discursive distinction between the professional and the amateur, one which equally signals a distinction between women who cope or manage and fall victim to the structuration of public and private spheres, reproduces divides between sex workers based on race and class. The comparative lack of value assigned to the sexuality of migrant women is the major factor determining which women work below the going-rate and undertake endangering work such as unprotected sex. The ability of migrant women to survive within prostitution often depends on their willingness to sacrifice themselves to the (vicious) structuration of public and private spheres and their lack of mobility. As we will see in the next section, this situation has drawn the attention of rights activists and policymakers alike and has not seldom resulted in measures which tend to paradoxically reproduce existing hierarchies between native and migrant prostitutes.

Normalising the "Emancipated" (Dutch) Prostitute
Much attention of policymakers and prostitutes' rights activists has been directed at creating conditions in which women can freely decide whether they want to engage in sex work. Although policymakers and rights activists do not see eye to eye on many issues, they tend to agree that in order to accomplish this objective, it is imperative that all forms of oppression and use of force related to prostitution, including trafficking in women, should be actively countered by the authorities. As part of these efforts the Dutch penal code now includes an article which indicates that oppression is occurring wherever the circumstances of a woman are "not equivalent to the conditions under which an independent and emancipated prostitute in The Netherlands normally works". In other words, the independent and emancipated prostitute becomes a legal construction constituting the norm against which all prostitutes are measured. 
Not surprisingly, however, this constructed norm of the independent and emancipated prostitute reflects and reinforces the already existing divide between native and migrant prostitutes: according to this construction, native prostitutes are portrayed as professionals, who are mobile and manage to uphold the distinction between their sex work and private lives; in other words, they are in control of the situation and, therefore, independent and emancipated as well as fully equipped to deal with the conditions of hypermodernity. In contrast, the survival of migrant women often seen as depending on their willingness to sacrifice essentialist conceptions of emancipation and empowerment. The price of emancipation for many migrant women in particular (if emancipation is reduced to professional practices) would often be complete loss of income or subjection to physical abuse by brothel and club owners. 
As such we can see how the discourse on professionalism/amateurism is itself embedded in unequal power relations informed by race. This discourse is in fact being enforced by the stigma attached to women who are forced by circumstance to succumb to victimisation. Rights activists within the field are strengthening the notion that being in control, being an emancipated prostitute, being professional, is a skill mastered primarily by native women and some migrant sex workers who have been in the business for a long time. Frontline organisations such as the Rode Draad have long since been pursuing a policy to ensure that women do not charge customers below a going-rate of 50fl for sex. This policy, however, ignores the fact that migrant women (as well as drug addicts and teenage Dutch girls) are often forced by market conditions to offer their services at competitive rates, in order to survive. 
In an interview with Marieke van Doorninck from De Graaf Stichting, we asked her which factors determine the price native and migrant sex workers charge for their services. In her response van Doorninck repeated the discursive distinction between sex workers who are professional and thus uphold a system of regulation which involves not working below a regulated price of 50fl, and those who, as amateurs, do. She indicated that her role as a policy consultant is to defend and pursue further emancipation for prostitutes already working in Amsterdam and that, from this perspective, the influx of migrant women into the industry is having a negative effect on the position of (native) prostitutes working in the district. The rationale applied here is similar to the often voiced public discourse of politicians and labour union officials who attack "Third World" countries for social dumping, by allowing child labour and below minimum wages to continue to exist. 
The construction of the (native) emancipated prostitute as the norm in legal texts as well as in prostitutes' rights discourses not only copies already existing hierarchies and stratifications between native and migrant sex workers, but also serves to further undermine the position of the latter by creating a divide which is virtually impossible to overcome. As soon as a (migrant) prostitute does not entirely conform to the constructed norm, it is assumed that she is an amateur, works below the regulated price, and finds herself in a situation of dependency. She is, therefore, perceived and treated as a victim by law enforcement officials, the immigration and naturalisation service as well as rights activists. However, as several health officials and rights advocates have intimated, the emancipated (native) prostitute is as much a constructed myth as the amateuristic migrant prostitute: among native prostitutes one finds many instances of amateurism and dependency, while the reverse is true for migrant prostitutes.
Fortunately, not all strategies devised by existing prostitutes' rights organisations are reproducing and reinforcing the constructed divide between native and migrant prostitutes. As we have discussed earlier, prostitutes move between public and private spheres, when they manage their interface between representations of themselves as whores and Madonnas. Mobility between these two representations is the key ability determining the level of professionalism of a prostitute. One organisation known as the Roze Draad, or the "Pink Thread," has been mobilising to undermine the dichotomy of whore/Madonna upon which the concept of prostitution is built. 
Equally the Roze Draad has sought to combat feminist preconceptions of prostitutes as apolitical or in need of representation. Much rather, it has attempted to combine conceptions of prostitution with that of feminism. Such an amalgamation, in principle and in organisation, functions as a deconstructive strategy, for it dispenses with the idea that the prostitute as apolitical exists to be rescued or saved by a politicised feminism. Equally, it defies strategies which aim to enhance the professionalism and emancipation of prostitutes without addressing the underlying dichotomous societal construct which places the label of prostitute onto women who transgress the boundaries of existing gender codes. In contrast also to some postmodern-feminists, who have looked at prostitution as a means to unifying while preserving concepts of the whore and Madonna in the representation of female bodies , both the Rode and Roze Draad have sought to demythologise the position of the prostitute within society, to give her a human dignity commensurate with that of any ordinary bearer of political rights, through pursuing the decriminalisation of the industry, and the destruction of moral prejudice against sex work. The successes of these organisations in engendering a greater decriminalisation and tolerance of prostitution have, however, a negative side. State and municipal authorities have compensated for decriminalisation by increasing their propensities for surveillance, and ultimately harassment, of prostitutes by introducing new regulations, such as health and hygiene requirements as well as building safety and fire codes. 
With respect to migrant women the categories of prostitute and prostitution are even more difficult to undermine and transform as they continue to be used as traditional mechanisms of social control. According to Gail Pheterson: The whore stigma is an easy tool of state repression and control, such as control over migrants, since flagrant sexism is more acceptable than racism and xenophobia.(...) Some migrant women travelling from poor to rich countries may be automatically accused of prostitution regardless of their activities as an excuse for expulsion or as a control of the means of entry and sustenance of those women and their associates. 
This function of sexism as a tool for social exclusion is used by such receiving states which take the view that women, who are forced to pursue prostitution as an escape from repression, effectively surrender their status as political actors. 
Such attitudes towards prostitution are creating a paradoxical situation for migrant and refugee women, as they tend to stigmatise them, either as apolitical (in the case of receiving states), or too political (in the case of states of origin - for their refusal to accept traditional gender codes). In this current round of global restructuring, prostitution thus seen, performs a dual role of stigmatisation upon migrant women especially. Ongoing changes in Dutch law, and more generally in public discourse, with respect to prostitution are in fact shifting the focus of disciplinary codes from prostitutes broadly defined, onto migrant prostitutes in particular. In reaction to migrant women's dual transgressions of discriminatory gender codes and transgressions against the state and market, prostitution becomes "the stigma and criminal charge of migrant women in economic need or oppression." This is yet another confirmation that prostitution often has more to do with power (in a variety of dimensions) than it is about sex.

Conclusion
Prostitution has long since been a feature of urban life, and has figured prominently in the make-up of Amsterdam ever since its emergence as one of Europe's premier ports. However, the role, intensity and typology of prostitution has been transfigured by the onset of the global era, and the diverse soci-cultural transformations which that has entailed. Hypermodernity infers a corporeal signification, one which incorporates the human (female) body into its process. As consequence, the growth of the prostitution industry can no longer be viewed merely as a systemic corollary of political-economic change. Prostitution, its discourses, and the prostitute body itself are sites upon which a hyperliberal order is inscribed. This we have sought to demonstrate by highlighting the extent to which Amsterdam's municipal authorities are complicit in its promotion, and how hyperliberal discourse has been codified within the industry itself. The effect of global restructuring on the prostitution industry cannot be viewed outside the impact of restructuring on women and men in general. The shifting of boundaries between public and private spheres, with its consequent effect on sexual regulatory concepts of whores and Madonnas, is one being experienced by women world-wide. These shifts are procreating inequalities on a broad scale, most particularly in regard to race and class. Strategies designed to promote and uphold modes of emancipation among sex workers risk reinforcing such inequalities, if they maintain essentialist conceptions of who the emancipated are, and how emancipation is fashioned. As such, rights activists have reached an impasse as to their ability to engender greater formal rights for prostitutes which are truly inclusive.
What is needed is a erosion of the whore/Madonna complex which can only occur in tandem with the positive social acceptance of women and men who sell sexual service, and not its mere toleration. Moving from the moment of dissent to that of resistance or counter-intuition, entails not merely the rejection of our identities as conceived within dominant discourses, but rather destroying the rules in regard to transgression, and the creation of more positive forms of identity. With equal temperance, we must conclude that the particular role of migrant women in underscoring the processes of restructuring within prostitution, will not be properly overcome without fundamental changes in the structure of society and the global political economy. However, in lieu of massive structural change, further research into the difficulties entailed for migrant women working in a highly racialised and class-based industry such as prostitution is needed. Prostitutes' rights organisations, and activists within the field need also to give further thought to the problems entailed in self-regulation of the industry, the role of sex workers themselves in creating 
discriminatory systems of norms, and the need to create consciousness upon these issues.
We wish to thank the anonymous reviewer for the insightful comments and suggestions. We also wish to thank Sietske Altink, Marieke van Doorninck and Thérèse van der Helm for their time and cooperation, as well as allowing us an glimpse into the complexities of the rules and regulations surrouding the prostitution industry in Amsterdam. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Millennium 'Gender and International Studies' Xth Anniversary Conference, held at the London School of Economics, September 12-13, 1998.
 

See for instance Cynthia Enloe, The Morning After: Sexual Politics at the End of the Cold War (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1993); Jan Jindy Pettman, Worlding Women: A Feminist International Politics (London and New York: Routledge, 1996); Katherine H.S. Moon, Sex among Allies: Military Prostitution in U.S.-Korea Relations (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997).
As argued elsewhere we prefer the term global restructuring over globalisation (see Marianne H. Marchand, 'Reconceptualising 'Gender and Development' in and Era of 'Globalisation'', Millennium (Vol. 25, No.3, 1996), p. 577); however, because much of the literature does explicitly use the term globalisation, in particular in the context of discussion about modernity, we will use the two terms-global restructuring and globalisation-interchangeably in this article. Anthony Giddens, Modernity and Self-Identity (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1991); Mike Featherstone and Scott Lash, 'Globalization, Modernity and the Spatialization of Social Theory: An Introduction', in Mike Featherstone, Scott Lash, and Roland Robertson (eds.), Global Modernities (London: Sage, 1995), pp1-24; Arjun Appadurai, Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996); Martin Albrow, The Global Age (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1996); Martin Albrow, 'Globalization after Modernization: A New Paradigm for Development Studies?', paper presented at the Workshop 'Globalization and Development Studies' organised by the Third World Centre, University of Nijmegen, October 30 - November 1, 1997. 
On the representation of Asian women in Western literature see, among others: Chandra Mohanty, 'Under Western Eyes: Feminist Scholarship and Colonial Discourses', Feminist Review (Vol. 30, Autumn 1988), pp. 61-88; Jongwoo Han and Lily H.M. Ling, 'Authoritarianism in the hypermasculinzed State: Hybridity, Patriarchy, and Capitalism in Korea' International Studies Quarterly (Vol. 42, No.1, 1998): pp. 53-78. Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, L'Anti-Oedipe. Capitalisme et Schizophrénie (Paris: Editions de Minuit, 1972) and Eugene W. Holland, 'Schizoanalysis and Baudelaire: some Illustrations of Decoding at Work', in Deleuze: A Critical Reader, edited by Paul Patton (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1996). Eugene Holland, op. cit. in note 4, p. 244. See ibid. for a short explanation of the terms decoding/recoding and deterritorialisation/reterritorialisation. Giddens, op. cit. in note 3, pp. 4-5.
For an overview of these debates, see the literature listed in note 3 as well as the following authors: Jacques Derrida, Of Grammatology (trans. Gayatri Spivak) (Baltimore, John Hopkins University Press, 1976); Jean François Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge (Minneapolis, Minneapolis University Press, 1984); Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity (Cambridge, Polity Press, 1990); David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity (Oxford, Blackwell, 1990); Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism 
(Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1991). 
Giddens, op. cit. in note 3; Jan Nederveen Pieterse, 'Globalization as Hybridization', in Mike Featherstone et al., op. cit. in note 3, p. 51; Dorothy O. Helly and Susan M. Reverby (eds.) Gendered Domains: Rethinking Public and Private in Women's History (Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 1992); Gillian Youngs, 'Breaking Patriarchal bonds: Demythologizing the Public/Private', in Marianne H. Marchand and Anne Sisson Runyan, Gender and Global Restructuring: Sightings, Sites and Resistances(working title), forthcoming.
Helly and Reverby, op. cit. in note 9; Youngs, op. cit. in note 9.
Jean Baudrillard, 'Symbolic Exchange and Death', in Jean Baudrillard, Selected Writings (Cambridge, Polity Press (in association with Basil Blackwell), 1988), p. 128.
Ibid., p. 128.
Ibid., p. 127.
Ibid., p. 162.
Than-Dam Truong, Sex, Money and Morality: The Political Economy of Prostitution and Tourism in South East Asia (Ph.D. Thesis, University of Amsterdam, 1988).
Ibid., p. 324-5
For a discussion of these new challenges see Giddens, op. cit. in note 3, esp. the introduction.
Nederveen Pieterse, op. cit. in note 9, p. 51
Shannon Bell, Reading Writing and Rewriting the Prostitute Body (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press,1994), p. 135. 
See for instance, Cynthia Enloe, Bananas, Beaches and Bases: Making Feminist Sense of International Politics (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990); 
Truong, op. cit. in note 15; Marije Schuurman Hess, Global Margins: Polish Women Trafficked (University of Amsterdam: MA Thesis, 1996); Pettman, op. cit. in note 2, passim; Katherine H.S. Moon, op. cit. in note 2; Jan Jindy Pettman, 'Women on the Move: Globalisation, Gender and Labour Migration', FAIR Working Papers (Vol.1, No.1, 1998).
Cynthia Enloe, op.cit. in note 20; Katherine H.S. Moon, op. cit. in note 2.
Cynthia Enloe, op. cit. in note 2, p. 154.
Enloe, op.cit. in note 20. 
Truong, op. cit. in note 15.
Gail Pheterson, The Prostitution Prism (Amsterdam, University of Amsterdam Press, 1996), p. 103.
Petra de Vries, Kuisheid voor Mannen, Vrijheid voor Vrouwen. De Reglementering en Bestrijding van Prostitutie in Nederland, 1850-1911 (Hilversum: Verloren, 1997), p. 276.
Marjan Sax, 'Nette meisjes Komen in de Hemel, Slechte Meisjes Komen Overal', in Frank Belderbos and Jan Visser (eds.), Beroep: Prostitutie (Utrecht: Stichting Welzijnspublikatie, 1987), pp. 82-90. 
Pheterson, op.cit. in note 25, p. 103.
See, in particular, the chapters by Saskia Sassen-Koob, Peter Hall and Manuel Castells in Jeffrey Henderson and Manuel Castells (eds.), Global Restructuring and Territorial Development (London: Sage, 1987); Saskia Sassen, The Global City: New York, London, Tokyo (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1991).
See, for example, Saskia Sassen-Koob, 'Issues of Core and Periphery: Labour Migration and Global Restructuring', in Henderson and Castells (eds.), op. cit. in note 29, pp. 60-87; Kimberly Chang and Lily H.M. Ling, Globalization and its Intimate Other: Filipina Domestic Workers in Hong Kong', in Marchand and Runyan (eds.), op. cit. in note 9.
Chris Hamnett, 'Social Polarisation in Global Cities: Theory and Evidence', Urban Studies (Vol. 31, No. 3, 1994), pp. 401-424; Eleonore Kofman, 'The Unskilled, Deskilled and the Professional: Diverse Situations of Female Immigrants in Major European Cities', in Marchand and Runyan (eds.), op. cit. in note 9.
Immanuel Wallerstein, The Modern World-System I: Capitalist Agriculture and the Origins of the European World-Economy in the Sixteenth Century (New York and London: Academic Press, 1974), passim; Fernand Braudel, Civilization and Capitalism, 15th-18th Century, Volume 2: The Wheels of Commerce, trans. By S. Reynolds (New York: Harper and Row, 1982), passim.
Many of these ups and downs are related to the economic and political climate in The Netherlands (and particularly Amsterdam): a prosperous economic climate was often accompanied by a booming prostitution business; however, after the prostitution business had thrived for a while, it was usually met by public outcry about the city's declining moral standards and, in response, city officials resorted to tighter regulation of the sex industry. For the international reputation of the Amsterdam prostitution scene see: ibid., passim
B.J. Schuurmans, Ontsluyerde Geheimen der Stad Amsterdam (Amsterdam: n.p, 1862), p. 24 quoted in van Marieke van Doorninck and Margot Jongedijk, In het Leven: Vier Eeuwen Prostitutie in Nederland (Amsterdam/Apeldoorn: Historisch Museum Apeldoorn and Mr. A. de Graaf Stichting, 1997), p. 66.
Chang and Ling have first introduced this distinction between dominant and subordinate forms of globalisation by juxtaposing globalization 1 (G1) of 'techno-muscular capitalism' to globalization 2 (G2) involving a sexualised and racialised 'regime of labour intimacy' (see op. cit. in note 30)
In August 1998 was the first time that these games were held outside the North American region . This fact helped to establish Amsterdam as the gay capital of Europe. Although the organising committee of the games (as well as Amsterdam city officials) were very optimistic about the economic benefits that the games were supposed to generate, they turned out to be a financial disaster. Not only was the chair of the committee fired, the organising committee had to file for bankruptcy as well. Moreover, the city of Amsterdam provided a 4 million guilders (= ca. $ 2 million) emergency loan to prevent the premature termination of the games. Interestingly, the international accounting firm KPMG appears to be responsible for some of the budgeting errors as it never caught some of the errors and mistakes made by the organising committee. One could say that this is another example of the links between Amsterdam's global capital-oriented image and its image of permissiveness. (for an account of the financial problems surrounding the gay games, see the Dutch press: in particular, De Volkskrant, Het Parool, De Groene Amsterdammer). 'Amsterdam Ontvangt Vijftien Staatsbezoeken Tegelijk', De Volkskrant (electronic version), http://www.volkskrant.nl (December 19, 1996). 
Frederiek Wierda, 'Een Acht bij Vertrek', NRC Handelsblad (electronic version), http://www.nrc.nl (January 9, 1997). 
Amsterdam logo and slogan 'Amsterdam-Capital of Inspiration', http://www.amsterdam.nl.
The term sex tourist is often used in the Red Light district to distinguish potential clients from tourists who are visiting the district to just 'have a look'. We placed the term 'sex tourist' in quotation marks because most of these tourists have no intention of visiting a prostitute and should, therefore, be distinguished from what is usually understood by sex tourism. It should be noted that this kind of tourism is also occurring in Amsterdam, but remains largely invisible: we have anecdotal information that every Friday night flights from various European countries arrive which carry mainly male passengers who are coming to Amsterdam as (potential) clients of the sex industry.
VVV-Amsterdam Tourist Office, 1998/1999: 64 Excursions in and around Amsterdam (Amsterdam: Amsterdam Tourist Office, 1998), p. 11.
In The Netherlands each town or region has a public health office, called Gemeentelijke Geneeskundige en Gezondheidsdienst (GG&GD) or Gemeentelijke Gezondheidsdienst (GGD). These offices deal with public health issues, such as AIDS and Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STDs) and have always played an important role in the regulation of prostitution.
We have conducted the following interviews: Marieke van Doorninck, policy consultant for the Mr. A. De Graaf Stichting, July 22, 1998 (The Mr. De Graaf Stichting is an institute dealing with prostitution issues. It not only collects information about prostitution business and the position of prostitutes in The Netherlands, but it will also conduct policy-oriented research in order to influence policymaking. The efforts of the Mr. A. De Graaf Stichting are generally directed at the empowerment of prostitutes and the social acceptance of prostitution/prostitutes); Sietske Altink, policy consultant, Rode Draad, (telephone interview), August, 24, 1998 (The 'Rode Draad' (Red Thread) is an advocacy organisation of prostitutes' rights, comparable to a labour union and was founded in the 1980s); Thérèse van der Helm, Project leader for migrant prostitution, Amsterdam GG&GD, September 22, 1998 (The Dutch term for the GG&GD project headed by Thérèse van der Helm is 'Project Vertrouwensvrouw (Migranten) Prostitutie' which means literally 'Confidential Woman for (Migrant) Prostitution'. This office can be compared to the institution of an Ombuds(wo)man or counselling service and operates under strict rules of privacy and confidentiality. It has an out-reach and counselling function for migrant prostitutes. It also tries to provide policy makers, social workers and activists with information concerning the position of migrant prostitutes.
In 1911 a law was passed which prohibited the exploitation of brothels. This law was introduced to counter the trafficking in women which was widespread back then.Van Doorninck and Jongedijk, op. cit. in note 34, p. 75.
In our interview with her, Thérèse Van der Helm informed us about the most recent changes in the nationalities which are represented in the district. Since a recent ruling by the Amsterdam Appeals court during the Summer of 1998, overturning an earlier decision by the lower court (see note 51), it is now illegal for East and Central European prostitutes to work as self-employed entrepreneurs. As a result, ca. 80% of the East and Central European prostitutes have disappeared from the regular prostitution scene (window, clubs, etc) in Amsterdam and their places have been taken by returning Latin American prostitutes, who had initially left because of the competition by the East and Central European sex workers. The influence of regulation (and the implementation of various immigration laws) on the prostitution industry-at-large and the position of migrant women without working permits has once 
again been illustrated by a story which recently broke in the Dutch press. According to the reports, about 80-85% of the windows in The Hague are now unoccupied because the local police has checked all prostitutes in the district on their migrant status. 
According to the (window) owners, this is reversing a longstanding policy of tolerance toward migrant prostitutes who are working without working permit. The owners are now looking for other, legal prostitutes coming from other European Union countries to replace the women who have either fled or have been deported. These same owners also suggested that Dutch prostitutes are racist and won't accept migrant men as clients. According to the owners this could lead to a situation, whereby women who are not prostitutes are being harassed by frustrated (migrant) clients. In other words, the measures by the police are endangering the safety of women in The Hague (Radio 1 report, january 5, 1999).
van der Helm, Interview see note 43. 
van der Helm, Interview.
Altink, Interview see note 43.
GG&GD, Jaarverslag 1995-1996, Vertrouwensvrouw (Migranten)prostitutie (Amsterdam, GG&GD: 1997), p. 4; GG&GD, Jaarverslag 1997, Project Vertrouwensvrouw (Migranten)prostitutie (Amsterdam, GG&GD: 1998), p. 4.
GG&GD, Jaarverslag 1997 in note 50, p. 5; and as we have already noted, since the summer of 1998 this trend has been reversed because of a court ruling (see note 46). What this illustrates is the speed of circulation in the district and the industry. The prostitutes won in the lower courts, but the Immigration service has appealed and refuses to acknowledge that prostitutes are self-employed. The prostitutes are now taking the Immigration service to court because of loss of income (De Volkskrant, August 14, 1998). 
Nederveen Pieterse, op. cit. in note 9, p51; Helly and Reverby, op. cit. in note 9; 
Gillian Youngs, op. cit. in note 9.
Melanie Wells, 'Woman as Goddess: Camille Paglia Tours Strip Clubs', Penthouse (October 1994), p. 132.
Wendy Chapkis, Live Sex Acts (New York: Routledge, 1997), p. 160.
Ibid, pp. 151-152.
Raamwerk (Film Documentary, 27 minutes), directed by Merel Ülsü (Amsterdam, n.d.).
Licia Brussa, Migrant Prostitution, TAMPEP, (Amsterdam, De Graaf Stichting, 1996).
Janine Brodie, 'Shifting Boundaries: Gender and the Politics of Restructuring', in Isabella Bakker (ed.), The Strategic Silence: Gender and Economic Policy (London: Zed Books (in association with the North-South Institute, Ottawa), 1994), p.51.
After the courtesan of Homeric myth who gave sex to the crew of Odysseus's ship, only to reduce them to animality.
art. 250ter. See Marjan Wijers and Lin Lap-Chew, Trafficking in Women: Forced Labour and Slavery-like Practices in Marriage, Domestic Labour and Prostitution (Utrecht, Stichting Tegen Vrouwenhandel, 1997), p. 126.
The Roze Draad is a (feminist) sister- and support group of the Rode Draad and has recently merged with the Rode Draad.
Bell, op. cit. in note 19, pp. 140-142.
Hansje Verbeek, De Schuchtere Toenadering tussen Prostituées en Feministen. 
(Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 1986).
These measures are taken as part of the so-called 'gedoogbeleid' (a policy of 
tolerance) in anticipation of the changes in the law which will permit brothels and sex clubs to operate. In Amsterdam the municipal gedoogbeleid is focused on enforcing strict rules and regulations in terms of building and fire safety as well as certain minimum standards for health and hygiene.
Pheterson, op. cit. in note 25, p. 20.
Ibid., p.
Ischa Meijer (and Margot A.), 'Prostituéein de Politiek', (newspaperclipping--source unknown), found at Mr. A. De Graaf Stichting, Amsterdam.
Pheterson, op. cit., in note 25, pp. 103-104.